On 4/9/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
"it doesn't mean the information isn't readily available". Assuming we're talking about a newspaper article that is not available on the internet but can be found in LexisNexis: Where would you go to get it? If it is readily available there should be other places to get it for people who don't have LexisNexis access.
I often use 'The Times Digital Archive' to research articles, this being a searchable database of scans of every page of The Times since 1785. It is a private database which certain libraries subscribe to. Recently I had the unhappy experience of having another editor complain that because I had cited a source which was a Times article from the 1930s, it wasn't accessible on the internet and therefore not verifiable.
The fact is that old newspapers are available, even if you don't have LexisNexis. You can go to a newspaper library; most reference libraries in Britain have major newspapers on microfilm. It is no part of sourcing to find sources that a couch potato can find in 30 seconds on Google.