Disk
Format:
On CD-ROM or DVD; viewable only when installed on an individual computer.
Examples:
Le Monde sur CD-ROM, Pennsylvania Gazette, Civil War Newspapers, 19th Century African-American Newspapers. Plain text. Housed in the Electronic Text Center in Olin Library (NB: Pennsylvania Gazette, Civil War Newspapers, 19th Century African-American Newspapers are also available online through Accessible Archives database.
Content:
Selected runs of a one or a few newspaper titles with a common theme. Newspapers of historical interest: U.S. Civil War titles from the North and South, abolitionist titles.
Pros:
Requires very little storage space. Full text is searchable.
Cons:
Limited content and time period covered; transitional medium.
Access rating:
Fair.
Preservation rating:
Uncertain, but probably poor. Usable life of disks unknown. Software changes will render them obsolete.
Notes:
Specialized use as a searchable language corpus: a snapshot of the language in a given context at a given time.