Google To Archive 244 Years Of Newspaper Articles Online

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc. is trying to expand the newspaper section of its online library to include billions of articles published during the past 244 years, hoping the added attraction will lure even more traffic to its leading Internet search engine.

The project announced Monday extends Google's crusade to make digital copies of content created before the Internet's advent, so the information can become more accessible and, ultimately, Google can make more money from ads shown on its Web site.

As part of the latest initiative, Google will foot the bill to copy the archives of any newspaper publisher willing to permit the stories to be shown for free on Google's Web site. The participating publishers will receive an unspecified portion of the revenue generated from the ads displayed next to the stories.

Google is touting the program as a way to give people an easier way to find a rich vein of history. The initiative also is designed to provide a financial boost to newspaper publishers as they try to offset declining revenue from print editions that are losing readers and advertisers to online news sources.

"I believe this could be a turning point for the industry," said Pierre Little, publisher of the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, which touts itself as North America's oldest newspaper, with editions dating to 1764. "This helps us unlock a bit of an asset that had just been sitting within the organization."

Besides the Chronicle-Telegraph, other newspapers that have already agreed to allow Google to copy and host their archives include the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. Google declined to specify how many other papers have signed up or how much the company has budgeted for the project.

Google already has committed to spending tens of millions of dollars to make electronic copies of books and other material kept in dozens of libraries around the world. The book-copying program, launched in 2004, has triggered a lawsuit from group of authors and publishers that alleges it infringes on copyrights _ a charge that Google is fighting.

Major newspapers including The New York Times and The Washington Post began to give Google's search engine access to some of their electronic archives in 2006. But those results frequently displayed only news snippets. Readers often had to pay a fee to see the entire article.

Besides being free, the newspaper archives hosted by Google will be presented in the same way they originally appeared in print, said Adam Smith, Google's product management director.

Finding the old newspaper stories initially will require searching through Google's "news" or "news archive" section. The newspaper archives should start showing up on Google's main results page within the next year, Smith said.

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On The Net:

http://news.google.com/archivesearch

Comments

[Triangle1]

It's nice that what has essentially ended the need for newspapers, the internet, will now catalog its existence. All of this is of course to get more clicks online that involve Google. They're not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. http://mespace.wordpress.com

[InternationalObserver]

great! I'll use this.

[mamacat]

This is wonderful news. There have been many times that I wished I could go back and research articles that I remember reading from long ago.

[booksnmore4you]

Fantastic! I don't like big corporations except when they use their power in ways that truly help the public like this.

[Lemastre]

This could be like a time machine taking us back to 1764, if any newspapers are available from that era. It might make the study of American history more interesting for high school kids if they can read newspaper accounts of historical events and the other goings-on of the time.

[geneven]

No kidding! This will be like Google Earth, only for time.