FACTSHEET #6

FCA
TO BACCO I N D U ST RY D O C U M E N TS
Framework Convention Alliance
for Tobacco Control

s part of legal settlements in the United States, the tobacco Tobacco Documents Online (TDO)

A industry was forced to disclose millions of previously

http://www.tobaccodocuments.org. TDO
contains documents from the seven
tobacco industry document sites:
confidential internal documents, most of which are now publicly
American Tobacco Company, Brown
available on the internet. These documents have provided important & Williamson, Council for Tobacco
Research, Lorillard, Philip Morris, RJ
revelations — from the tobacco industry’s role in facilitating Reynolds and the Tobacco Institute as
well as a series of specialised collections,
cigarette smuggling to industry efforts to enhance the addic- including select BAT documents, some
of the US Committee on Commerce
tiveness of cigarettes — which have helped spur legislative and
documents and specialized research
regulatory action. As ongoing litigation continues, the tobacco collections.
There are also a number of minor spe-
industry is continually obligated to complement these collec-
cialized collections, such as the University
tions with additional documents. of Sydney’s Tobacco Documents System
(http://tobacco.health.usyd.edu.au/site/gate
The continuing challenge for tobacco RJ Reynolds Documents, Tobacco way/docs/search.htm) which focus on
control advocates is how to search Institute Documents, DATTA tobacco industry internal documents
through these documents, find the most Transcripts, Mangini (“Joe Camel”) concerning Australia, China, Hong
relevant documents for legislative and Documents, UCSF Brown & Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, New
regulatory efforts and then use them to Williamson Documents and the U.S. Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand.
good effect. Committee on Commerce collection.
Getting Started
British American Tobacco (BAT) was
Websites allowed to place its documents in a For beginners, the Legacy
The most comprehensive and easy to separate repository in Guildford, (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu) site is one
use documents site is the University of England rather than placing them of the easiest to use and contains a large
California San Francisco Legacy online.1 About two million pages (and number of useful documents. As a fur-
Tobacco Documents Library: eventually more than six million in the ther aid to users, Legacy provides help
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu. This site next three years) of these documents can tutorials on how to search through their
contains the following collections: be found online at the UCSF British site. Legacy allows you to simultaneous-
American Tobacco Documents, Brown American Tobacco Documents Archive ly search all nine collections, individual-
& Williamson Documents, Council for http://bat.library.ucsf.edu ly or in any combination. The default
Tobacco Research Documents, Lorillard setting includes the seven industry doc-
Another important resource is ument collections released as part of the
Documents, Philip Morris Documents,

Master Settlement Agreement. Becoming proficient with this
site first will help you better understand the more difficult
sites.
How to Begin
The best way to explain how to use the document sites is to
start with an example. Let’s say you want to know the industry’s
marketing plans in China. If you go to the Legacy site, click on
“search the collections,” select all of the document collections
(click on the “check all” box), then type the word “China” as
your search criteria, you will find this search returns 7,277
documents — clearly too many to look through. To narrow
your search further, run an advanced search and add the
phrase “marketing” to the second search criteria box. A
search of “China” and “marketing” returns 423 documents.
This is a much better, but still an unwieldy number. Let’s say
you first want to look at sports sponsorships. Add the word
“sports” to the search criteria, so it reads “China,” “market-
ing,” and “sports.” This search will return 36 documents,
including a 2000 Marlboro Bar Program,2 a 1994 Business
Planning Competitive Review,3 and a 1991 Marketing
Services Plan.4 Also note that the Legacy site allows for a
variety of search methods, including title, author, keyword
and date. Unlike the industry websites, Legacy does not
track users searching through industry documents.
Search Tips and Tactics
When searching, keep a pad of paper handy to record code
names of special projects, interesting terms, employee names
and titles and other words of interest that could aid in later
searches. In addition, it may be useful to record search terms,
date of search and number of hits so as to keep track of what
has been researched, when and where, for writing a method-
ology to show systematic searching.
Wildcards:
Wildcard searches allow you to search for variations of words
and plurals. This system uses an asterisk as a wildcard character.
For example, smok*, will retrieve records containing the
words smoke, smokes, smoker, and so forth.
Keywords:
Aside from specific search terms, there are some more generic
key words to keep in mind:
■ “Memo” (written correspondence between
FACTSHEET #6
company employees)
■ “Plan” (can help you find countrywide marketing plans)
■ “Letter” (written correspondence, usually with people
outside the company)
■ “Publication” (articles published in journals or other
periodicals)
■ “Article” (usually a newspaper or magazine article)
■ “Telex” (the industry’s word for e-mail as well as
overseas telexes)
■ “Confidential”. To help find the most confidential infor-
mation, you can also try adding the terms “attorney work
product” or just “work product” to your search criteria.
Some of the most sensitive documents were given this
designation in an attempt to shield them from the public.
The courts have placed a unique “Bates Number” on each
page of every document. These identifying numbers are
stamped on the page, usually vertically, on the lower left cor-
ner of each document. Record the Bates numbers of impor-
tant documents to use as references and make them easier to
find again.
As you will find out when you start searching, the
companies use code names and acronyms for many of their
campaigns, internal studies, and research projects. Examples
include “Project 16,” “Operation Downunder” and
“FUBYAS” (an R.J. Reynolds acronym for “First Unbranded
Young Adult Smokers”). These code names and acronyms
can help you zero in on a particular project while excluding
many extraneous documents.
Note the names and titles of the employees on the docu-
ments that you find. Often, one executive is put in charge of
a company’s political and/or marketing activities in a certain
part of the world. Searching for documents authored by this
person can reveal a cache of information about how the
industry acted in certain countries. Also, these executives
usually turned in regular reports to their headquarters about
their division’s activities. These reports can be a tremendous
source of information.
Storing Documents for Later Use
The Legacy site allows for two methods of storing documents
for future use. The site provides a web address (URL) that
 FACTSHEET #6

may be bookmarked. Use this URL, which provides a perma-
nent link to the document, when citing a document in a
publication. In addition, there is an option to “add to bookbag.”
The documents saved in the bookbag can be emailed or
downloaded for later use. To save a document, right-click on
the PDF link and choose “Save target as” from the menu.
Where to Go for Further Help
■ The search instructions posted at each site contain basic
information that every document researcher should read
before searching. These contain vital instructions such as
how to properly format search terms. Always read these
instructions before proceeding! Consult the examples
offered within them as your first step in addressing problems.
■ You may also be able to get assistance from other experienced
researchers by joining the tobacco industry document dis-
cussion list “doc-talk” and “intldoc-talk” on the web. To
sign up for these lists, go to: http://www.smokescreen.org
Technical Requirements
Internet Connection Speed: A modem and phone lines which
support a 28.8 kbps (band rate) should be adequate for view-
ing documents without being so slow as to be completely
frustrating. At this speed, an average page of text should take
between 5-7 seconds to load, while a 50-page document
could take six to eight minutes to load. Higher-speed internet
connections (such as DSL, ISDN, satellite or wireless services)
offer faster download times but cost more.
Processing Speed: To view the documents it is recommended
to have a minimum of 32 MB of RAM — upgrading the
amount of RAM is relatively simple on most computers.

Resources on the Web

Guide to Using the Legacy Website:
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tutorial/
The Tobacco Industry Documents: An Introductory Handbook and Resource Guide for Researchers
www.lshtm.ac.uk/cgch/tobacco/Handbook%2008.07.03.pdf
Trust Us: We’re The Tobacco Industry (a compilation of quotes from internal tobacco industry files)
www.ash.org.uk/html/conduct/html/trustus.html

Endnotes
1. Researchers wishing to view these documents must contact Martyn Gilbey 3. <http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gdd76c00>
at BAT to set up an appointment (tel. 44-171-845-1466; fax. 44-171- 4. <http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/kjv19e00>
845-2783). Expect long delays (many months) in getting copies.
2. <http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ebm48c00>

Framework Convention Alliance on Tobacco Control www.fctc.org

Rue Henri-Christiné 5, Case Postale 567, CH-1211 Genève, Switzerland
tel. 41-22-321-0011; 1-202-352-3284 fax. 41-22-329-1127 e-mail: fca@globalink.org
Adapted and updated with permission from the 2000 World Conference on Tobacco OR Health fact sheets. June 2005