Back to NewsFilm Online Support
The NewsFilm Online resource contains some 3,000 hours of video news stories in the form of some 60,000 segmented encodings, together with some 24,000 programme scripts, from the archives of ITN and Reuters Television, both of whom were partners in the digitisation project that created the resource. This footage, digitised by the British Universities Film & Video Council (BUFVC), includes several key cinema newsreels and some of the most significant events of the past century, from the Crystal Palace fire (1936) to the first interview with Nelson Mandela (1961) to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales (1997). An enormous range of news stories across a whole range of academic disciplines is available online to subscribing UK Further and Higher Education institutions.|
NewsFilm Online allows users to search and download video news and will also assist the adoption of new methodologies for research and citation. Users will be able to embed clips in virtual learning environments (VLEs) or PowerPoint presentations and can 'quote' from the source material in learning and teaching materials just as they would from a printed resource.
Go to NewsFilm Online and click on login. Depending on your local setup, you may be asked for a username and password. If your username or password is not recognised, follow the alternative login procedures link.
Non-subscribers can search and browse by clicking on the Search and Browse link.
The service is normally available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Any planned service breaks will be announced via the EDINA web site.
Online help is available at all times. To return from Help to the previous area, follow the relevant link in the navigation bar at the top.
For more information, contact your local library, or:
Email: edina@ed.ac.uk or WWW: http://www.nfo.ac.uk
To move to a different section of the interface, select one of the links on the top toolbar below the service logo. It is recommended that these links are used instead of the Back and Forward button where possible. The choices are:
screen image of Navigation bar:
screen image of Standard Search box:
All collections are searched by default in a standard search. Enter a keyword in the search box, choose which field in the metadata to search from the drop-down menu, then click the Search button. Examples of searches are shown below:
| Search entered: | Retrieves all individual records containing... |
| Brit* | Brit, British, Britain etc. |
| Britain | Britain, not British or Brit |
| Britain or England | Either the word Britain or England |
| Britain and War | Both the words Britain and War |
| Britain not War | he word Britain but not War |
screen image of Advanced Search:
This page allows multi-field searching and search limiting. This is best used for complex searches. You may search either one or all active collections. The logical operators, 'and', 'or' and 'not', allow you to combine search terms in order to narrow or broaden search results, or to exclude results which contain a particular word or phrase. You may also specify different fields for each search term.
screen image of Browse by Subject:
The titles in NewsFilm Online have been classified by subject, using the IPTC system. The top-level subjects, such as Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Crime, Law & Justice, Disaster & Accident, Economy, Business & Finance and Education, are displayed on the left side of the Browse Subject page. You can click on the More Topics button next to each top-level subject to view lists of individual subject terms. Each individual subject term has a link indicating the number of associated NewsFilm Online titles.
screen image of Browse by Date:
The Browse Date timeline allows you to select materials initially by decade. Once you have selected a decade, you can select a specific year, month and day - or choose another decade. It is also possible to search by date range from a link in the lefthand sidebar.
The Search History page stores all searches performed during the current session. It allows you to rerun or combine any of these searches. To rerun a search, click the checkbox in the Search column for your desired search, then click the Search button. To combine searches, click the checkboxes beside the chosen searches, select the operator (and, or, not) from the drop-down menu, and click the Search button.
screen image of Search History:
Search results are displayed (with a thumbnail image) in brief format: Title, truncated Description, Collection. To view a full record, click on the chosen film title. By default, 10 records are displayed on each results page. You may jump forward 10 records at a time, or to the end of the list of records, by using the Jump To numbers at the upper and lower right of each results page. Records are displayed grouped by collection. The number of results from each individual collection is presented on the left. To jump to the results section in the set for a particular collection, click the collection link. The left side of the page contains information about the search including the search term, the number of results and the collection(s) searched.
screen image of a Search Results:
To download a video segment, click on the link at the end of a segment description. To download the whole video item, click on the link at the end of the full record page. If you have not downloaded materials from NewsFilm Online before, you may find the following guidance useful.
image of Download & Playback options:
The Full Record page shows a main thumbnail image, all information fields and further thumbnail images. All search terms are highlighted. The fields displayed vary from record to record, but contain full details about the video item. From this page you can click to download the video, either in full or as segments, or to play the first segment of the video. You can also download any associated materials, such as programme scripts. There are links to go to the previous or next full record in the set of results and to return to the brief search results. There is also a link below the Persistent URL in the metadata to email the metadata text to others.
screen image of a Full Record:
The 'Email this text' link on the Full Record Page page below the Persistent URL in the metadata allows you to email the descriptive text of a full record. You should enter the desired email address in the top text box, and either leave the default subject line as is or amend it. The Comments field may also be used.
It is good practice to use the Exit link when you have finished the session. This will take you to a logoff page where you click the Logoff link. You will exit from your NewsFilm Online session. You will be automatically logged out after a period of non-use of the interface.
Last updated August 2008