I find the Hawaii State Library’s website logic about as good as it gets when it comes to libraries — that is, not at all intuitive. I, however, am of the belief that more is always better. You just need to be able to find what you need. The following instructions are for anyone who has ever wanted to be alerted on just the parts of the Honolulu Star Advertiser that interests them. And, for what it’s worth, you can ONLY do that through the library system. Even the newspaper’s own website doesn’t allow you to do what Newspaper Source Plus does.
These tips are also extremely useful to my mainland transplant friends that only want bits and pieces of local news. For non-residents, all you have to do is request a library card when you’re back home visiting family, then pay the incredibly small fee of $25 for five years.
How to create an automated search of the Star Advertiser
(requires Hawaii State Library card)
First, have your library card and PIN handy. Then, access this list of databases.
http://www.librarieshawaii.org/serials/databases.html
Although it may be tempting to use the database that says “Star Advertiser,”
resist the urge. Instead, access Newspaper Source Plus by EBSCO. The site comes with the ability to create customized email or RSS feeds. The ProSource version does not.
From here, it’s more simple. Enter your library card number and PIN, then create an EBSCO account within the database. Now, do a search for the item you’re interested in, and click the button that says “Create Alert.” You’ll be given options for creating automated email alerts as well as an accompanying RSS feed if you use those. Here are a few screen shots to help you out.
In the example above, I pre-selected the “SO Journal Name” from a dropdown and entered “Honolulu Star Advertiser.” I also typed “Hawaii Kai” in quotations for the next field, and from the dropdown selected “TX All Text” The quotations around Hawaii Kai helps the computer know that those two terms need to be next to each other and are part of a phrase. Depending on your research you may also choose not to select the journal name. If you skip that field, you’ll get all of the results for “Hawaii Kai” from every source in this database. Or, if you’re a glutton for all the data you can gather, go to databases and select all of them. This includes all EBSCO data ,Newspaper Source Plus and others.
You can’t miss the giant button that says “Create Alert.” Click it and you’ll get results like the one below:
See the line about Email? If you want to be alerted when new material comes in, click the “sign in” link next to the Email instructions. Select your options. Your alert is good for up to one year, then you need to re-create it.
Google Chrome users may need to install an extension to read the feed link that is sent, or use feedly.com or other online RSS reader. Other browsers read RSS by default.