[PW] changes in Readers Guide to Periodical Literature?

[Donna Halper]

I was just checking some citations for the book I'm writing, and 
noticed something.  I've long ranted that the on-line versions of 
magazine articles often don't list the page number from the hard 
copy, so I went to the actual volume at my library of the Reader's 
Guide (which I've used for years) to seek page numbers, but noticed 
something interesting.  I was looking up Jerry Springer, and whether 
or not we like the guy, he has frequently been written about--  I 
know for a fact that Time has written several articles--  but I 
couldn't find one listing.  Not one. In fact, Reader's Guide had no 
Time magazine listings whatsoever on other popular culture topics 
related to Springer (I tried to do the search in several different 
ways, figuring maybe I was doing something wrong).  I even checked 
online in Reader's Guide Retrospective, and found nothing for 
Springer.  I have used the Reader's Guide for many years, and unless 
I am losing my memory, I recall when Reader's Guide used to list 
articles from all the popular magazines like Time and Newsweek and 
Reader's Digest.  Am I imagining it, or at some point did Reader's 
Guide change its focus?  Perhaps this is this a case of the brave new 
world of withholding and/or restricting certain information such that 
it's only available on a designated site and other sites or 
publications aren't allowed to use it.  I figured you good folks 
would know, as you are the experts for sure!

Donna L. Halper (friendly but puzzled media historian)
Emerson College Boston MA