Searching for past stories made easier

Young Saint Louis.com keeps lots of good stories from past issues. However, until now, you had to know when the story ran before you could find it in the archives.

With this edition, finding past stories you want just got much easier.

That's because YSL.com editors have added a "key-word searching" function to its Past Stories archive. That means you can find a desired story by entering key words into the search box. The computer automatically finds all archived stories with those key words.

This is the Google.com technique that helps you find information on the Internet.

Here's how the YSL.com archive search works:

Maybe you want to find a story about a kid athlete or musician you know. But, you don't remember which month the story ran. Enter your friend's name, the sport and maybe the team name and press "search."

The search mechanism will index all stories with those key words in them. The story you want should be included. Then, click on the right story and it will come up on the screen.

This function also will be valuable if you're looking for a kids' book to read. YSL.com reviews four popular kids books every month. If you know the title, just enter it and the search will find it if we've reviewed it.

Or, you may like a particular type of book (i.e. books for girls, books about animals or fantasy books). Put in key words and the computer will search over 100 past book reviews. You may find a number of books of the type you like.

When you want to search our book reviews, click the "Book reviews only" checkbox to make sure that links to other stories are not returned.

As with Google.com, the more specific your key words are, the more precise the search.

If you have questions about our searches, you can e-mail us by going to the Your Turn tab on the home page. You'll have easy access to us via e-mail, phone, snail mail and fax.

This is another improvement to YSL.com to help you get more out of this website. Enjoy.

The YSL.com search function is limited to all text content in our archives. For wider Internet searches, you need to go to Google.com.