New MMIS system ... searching old newspapers

Submitted by patricia on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 00:48

As a very frequent user of the MMIS system run by the HKPublic Library I've alternately loved and loathed it ... wonderful to be freely able to access all these papers at home, maddening how slow it is to load, even with superfast fibre optic broadband.  Now there's a new system, and if anyone can help me round it I'd be really grateful.  I've watched the video for searching old papers, but so far despite my best efforts I can't get a specific paper for a specific date.  I can get a date range - say 1909-1919 for the HKDaily Press, then get a year of that range ... but I don't seem to be able to narrow it down further ... and have to scroll through all the thumbnails to get the right edition - is this right?  At least you can set it to display 50 results per page, so the scrolling isn't too long.  The contents search now seems to have become just a headline search ... it used to pick up more, but so far I haven't found that.  Any comments?

Hi Patricia,

Looks like the HKPL has brought in the new format rather hastily.

I suggest you enter here and lets say if you wish to view the newspapers during the month of Janaury 1920, then type in 1920-01 in the Search field.

After the results appear, then look out for the sort field as indicated by SORTED BY on the middle right of the page. It may show the word Relevancy. Click the pull down menu and enter publishing year (oldest first) and the newspapers that you wish to view will come up in chronological order.

Hope this helps.

Hi Patricia,

I hadn't realised they've had a makeover. It was definitely due an update, but lets see if it's for the better or not!

I think you can get what you want from the Advanced Search: https://mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/web/guest/advanced-search

  • In CATEGORY, select "Newspaper and Serial"
  • In PUBLICATION DATE, select the range of dates you are interested in
  • Click SEARCH
However I can't see how to download a copy of the page, which we used to be able to do in the previous system. (There is a "Download" button, but clicking it just shows a message "No files available for download".) If anyone find a way to download, please let us know.

Regards, David

I have also found that if you zoom in on a page one does not seem to be able to drag the page left to right or up and down to read it.

Yes, the absence of any file/page download facility is really annoying, though if you have Windows 7 you can use the Snipping Tool to cut out and save articles. Just don't forget to add the date to the file name.

Patricia,

I've been searching for words in the text of the papers ok. It doesn't seem any better than the old system, but doesn't seem worse either. I went to advanced search (https://mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/web/guest/advanced-search), then under Criteria I changed Title to be Content.

Michael, click-and-drag in the zoom window is working ok for me. I am using the Chrome browser.

Regards, David