Scanning a recent issue of "UC Davis in the News," one comes across outside news stories on the proposed UC Davis biosafety lab to a wine bottle-opener invented by a professor to the campus’s new nutritional genomics center.

Known as "e-clips," the collection of newspaper and broadcast articles about UC Davis – both pro and con – is distributed each weekday and helps campus community readers track UC Davis news appearing in publications worldwide.

News Service launched e-clips in October of 2001. Today, 193 subscribers, including administrators, vice chancellors, deans, faculty members, and staffers, get the electronic clips in their e-mail boxes every day.

The service is available to all campus employees and students.

A search of archived articles since 2001 revealed 101 stories in the New York Times, 57 in the Wall Street Journal, 718 in the Sacramento Bee, 206 in the Los Angeles Times and 517 in the Davis Enterprise. The vast majority of those stories feature UC Davis research or programs in addition to a smaller number of higher-education trend stories.

"E-clips tell people how UC Davis is being talked about and portrayed in the rest of the world," says Lisa Lapin, director of the campus News Service. "It serves as a barometer of our national and regional reputation."

Lapin says UC Berkeley and the Office of the President offer a similar e-clips service, though they do not post it to the Web or make it searchable. It’s just an e-mail and then it’s gone. She says the UC Davis version is the "most extensive system among the UC campuses in that we archive the news." Other campuses, including Riverside, San Diego, Irvine and Santa Cruz, are looking at UC Davis’ e-clips as a model.

The archive search function can be found at http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/ in_the_news/default.lasso. By typing in a keyword or date, one can pull up any one of the more than 3,300 clippings posted in the last 18 months.

Much e-clip-archived research coverage belongs to Thomas Cahill, the emeritus professor of atmospheric science who released a landmark study on the air quality around Ground Zero. A search of Cahill since Sept. 11, 2001, brings up 93 references about his research at the World Trade Center and on other projects as well.

In the old days – well, before e-mail and the Internet – the daily news clippings project consisted of photocopied stories distributed by hand to a few people. Now, electronic clippings are available quickly – usually by late morning – and to a much wider audience. Best of all to some, the paperless form saves trees.

Lapin says copyright issues make UC Davis in the News only available to UC Davis employees, students and affiliates. "The full text of these news items is for the use of University of California faculty, staff and students," she said.

To view the full stories on the Web from off-campus, users need to provide their username and a password.

Matthew Hargrove, director of government relations, said the e-clips service is invaluable in keeping elected officials and their staffs informed about campus. "It is very simple to cut and paste relevant story synopses and e-mail them to public officials and our contacts along with a note highlighting how they are connected with evolving public policy issues affecting campus," he explained.

He also uses it as a way to keep "our alumni supporters on the AggieAdvocate email list aware of issues happening on campus." Hargrove hopes that one day people outside of campus might be able to directly access the stories.

Bernadette Meauze, the coordinator for the Chancellor’s communications and records center, said she distributes e-clips to several people in her office. "We enjoy the short description of the story and the ability to open the longer version if we wish," she said.

Jerry Jahn, director of development communications, said, "The best thing about working at a university is that you’re constantly being introduced to new perspectives and exciting discoveries. The daily news clips really are my life-line to the intellectual life of this place."

The e-clips site is located on the Web at http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/ in_the_news. To subscribe, contact newsservice@ucdavis.edu and ask to add your e-mail address to UC Davis in the News. New subscriptions take about 48 hours to become active.