This list has seen some recent discussion of the high database access fees 
faced by independent researchers.  Here's a new (and happy) wrinkle:  The New 
York Geneological and Biographical Society, a membership organization in New 
York (http://www.nygbs.org/) now provides its members with full on-line 
access to the Pro-Quest, full text database of The New York Times - back to 
1851.

At the NYG&B's beginning rate of $60 per year, this is an unusual advance for 
those scholars who work "without portfolio".  

I have not closely compared the Pro-Quest version of the Times with those 
offered by others (like Ancestry.com, and NewspaperArchive.com) except to 
determine that it is much more extensive in terms of date.  There are, 
however, noticeable variations of search results between all these databases 
(which are all developed from separate OCR digitizations of the microfilm 
version of the Times).  

There are also variations from the results of traditional hard copy research 
finding aids for the Times: for the early New York African-American architect 
Vertner Tandy, the G&B's ProQuest database picked up two articles on his 
wife's appearance at a 1923 wedding (of the granddaughter of Madame C. J. 
Walker, a hair-straightener millionaire and Tandy client) which do not appear 
in Byron & Valerie Falk's hard copy "Personal Name Index" to the Times. The 
Falk work has hitherto been the gold standard of Times indexing. But the 
ProQuest version somehow misses Tandy's 1949 obituary, which is captured in 
the Falk work.

Christopher Gray
"Streetscapes" Columnist, Sunday Real Estate Section
The New York Times
office:  246 West 80th Street
New York City   10024
voice:  212-799-0520
fax:     212-799-0542    
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