Google News - this product searches for news-story results for a keyword search.
Pros: * very fast
* better than a general search: since it is searching published news stories, this provides better information faster than doing a general Google search on many topics; you eliminate results that aren't already published information
* there is an archive--you can input search terms/places and then limit by timeline; this may be useful for finding "big" local news stories years after the fact when exact dates/details are fuzzy
* provides multiple perspectives quickly on various current news stories without needing access to a subscribed database
* no subscription needed to get a quick overview of published news stories about a topic
Cons: * many, if not most, of the archival results I turned up were "Pay-per-view" access, although the abstract could be viewed for free
* the results lists do not provide enough information to assess the relevance of each result, in contrast to a ProQuest or Ebsco search
Verdict: a good tool to use in lieu of general Google searching if you want to be a bit pickier about the source of information found (i.e. published articles) although not as well organized as subscribed databases. I like that you can use simple keyword searching as a "one-stop" first step to see what published articles are available on a topic, even if you will have to turn to an E-Library database to see full text on some of the older articles.
I would use this again and recommend it to others.
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