Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google
Google historical research tool launched
Google is opening up new worlds of search by launching an easier way to search and explore historical archives. Google News Archive Search creates timelines, and displays query results from time periods within the past 200 years. This is done by scanning archives of old newspapers, magazines and other publications that have never been scanned before, due to lack of spider ability of the particular databases. It was reported by Google that the New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and the Guardian Unlimited were all involved in this project.Google has two search options within Archive Search, Search Archives, and Show Timelines. Search Archives searches archives by publications, and can be narrowed down by dates. The Show Timelines search lists all search queries by dated categories, making it easier to track and follow news events as they have unraveled.
This new Google Archive database is pulling in massive amounts of content like the recently launched Times archive of 4300 issues, and 300,000 articles, and is going to make researchers everywhere extremely happy.
After spending the better part of an hour on 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Stephen Francoeur said 3:38PM on 9-07-2006
One small problem: most of the content you're going to find is only readable online after you pay a few dollars per article (or more depending on the source). Don't frustrate yourself this way. Get a library card from your local public library and access much of the same content FOR FREE via the library's databases. Yes, I am a librarian, so of course I'm going to shill for libraries; so read what Kevin Kelly of Wired had to say about "digital library cards". Or stop by your local library (use this site to find one near you).
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Stephen Francoeur said 3:40PM on 9-07-2006
These links should have come through in my previous comment:
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001285.php
http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb/
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james said 8:41PM on 9-07-2006
Don't worry, it won't take long before more and more publishers and content owners switch from the complicated, unwieldy database search engines used by Lexis Nexis and the like to the far more easily used Google method, and provide fulltext of their content funded by something like Google AdWords or some premium model as yet undreamed of.
Honestly, I worked at the Reference desk of a major university library for long enough to see that the big database vendors are going to get eaten alive by Google, and researchers everywhere will benefit from this. I've watched experienced librarians wring their hands and slap their foreheads in frustration at the arcane methods needed to search these databases, each vendor trying to reinvent the wheel and thus complicating what we have to teach students and researchers.
THIS is a step towards a much brighter, better researched future in my opinion.
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