The Library's Electronic Access Unit expressed an interest in making Mirlyn's list of electronic newspapers easier to browse. I'm happy to say that working with my colleagues in the EA Unit, we have developed a tool to do just this from the Library's website.
Now the ability to browse newspapers certainly isn't a new feature. You can go to the Mirlyn CCL page and construct your own query once you've looked up all the format codes, location codes, and country codes. What we set out to do was make it easier to use, which it certainly is. Other than eliminate the need to look up the various codes and the CCL syntax, what else will it do for you? It brings more information closer to the initial list. The information pertinent to newspapers are displayed, rather than general information which may apply more to books. For example, The links to the newspapers' websites are all with the initial list you receive, as is the publishing frequency. Furthermore the MTagger's tags are presented with the browse list, and you can tag as you browse. In the standard Mirlyn interface this requires extra steps. Finally, thumbnails of the website in question have been made where possible, and will be displayed inlined in the browse list. For a great example with thumbnails try looking for Advertizing Age from the list of electronic newspapers from Illinois. Having said all of this, the browse tool is missing something: a search box. While we'd love to be able to search the newspapers and let you know which ones have information you're looking for, it is unreasonable if not against the terms of our subscription to try to index them.