Metro-Atlanta Library Association Meeting Summary

CNN Center and Library and Official CNN Studio Tours
Saturday, November 12, 2011

On November 12, 2011, six librarians and library paraprofessionals (including 3 current MALA Board members) gathered for an extremely informative and enlightening guided tour of the CNN Library and CNN Studio. News and archives librarian, Caitlin Stark, met us in the visitor's lobby and led us to the library and archives.

Before entering the actual library and reference room, we saw the robot that CNN is using for digitizing the 425,000 videotapes that have accumulated in storage since CNN was launched in 1980. This project, which began in 2007, is over half complete now. We learned from the tour leader that after the tapes are digitized, they recycle them. The obvious advantage of the digital format is that anyone can listen to a news show anywhere--and, of course, it frees up much space. All CNN material now comes in digital format.

When we were led to the library, we saw the reference desk, the rolling carriages of shelves of videos, and also one short wall with a span of shelves holding a few print resources. According to our guide, the CNN library serves CNN employees only. There are CNN libraries in several other locations in the US and Great Britain, including New York, DC, Los Angeles, and London. CNN ImageSource is a separate arm of the archive which sells stock footage of past CNN clips to the journalism and corporate public for a fee.

In the final part of the library tour, our guide explained the reference process and some of the research tools they use, including subscriptions and custom resources created internally. The questions which come to the reference desk are usually either video or information questions. The latter may involve complex research or be simple reference questions but most often include tight time constraints. The online and reference tools they use most frequently include LEXIS/NEXIS (primarily news-related), Accurint (a biographical research tool), and PACER (a federal court searching tool). The library's video retrieval system is called MIRA, a controlled vocabulary which the librarians have developed to index and organize videos based on what key words are the most important. A team of staff librarians meets regularly to standardize the key words in this system. Another research tool the staff created for itself is FAST FACTS, a growing index of the most prominent topics in the news with basic introductory information and facts. The news and archives librarian manages this project and meets regularly with the staff to update and edit this index.

For our second part of the morning we had the guided behind-the-scenes tour of CNN Studio. We learned that there are thirteen other CNN newsrooms throughout the US and 31 additional newsrooms internationally, and three broadcasting divisions of CNN including CNN, CNN International, and CNN Headline News. We gathered in the lobby of the atrium and were whisked up the longest freestanding escalator in the world to the eighth floor, where we started the tour in the re-created CNN Control Room. In the Control Room theater we saw a wall of many screens. When the director gives a call, a small news screen pops up. From here we worked our way down each level where there was a chance to peer into two newsrooms. As we descended gradually we saw the main newsroom and then the CNN Headline News newsroom from glass walled observation stations. Headline News is a branch of CNN for viewers on the go in locations other than metro Atlanta and is more entertainment-oriented than politically-oriented. In the main newsroom we saw the many writers and editors at work composing news scripts and there was a library reference desk.

In a special effect studio, we saw broadcast equipment such as a teleprompter (computer monitor with two way mirror), a lavalier (a special type of microphone which is attached to the lapel of the news anchor), various cameras, and an IFB (interruptible feedback device). We learned that for weather forecasting shots, the meteorologist cannot wear blue or green or he/she will appear as part of the background and thus partially invisible to viewers (this is part of the special effect of broadcasting the weather maps known as the blue chroma key system). The studio guide explained other technologies also.

The tour concluded in the gift shop known as the Turner Store on the first level,where attendees could pick up photos of themselves as mock TV anchors reading a news script at the anchor desk.
 

Special thanks to Thom Shelton for providing this meeting summary.