Google Makes Old Content Sing

By: Jennifer Saba For two years Google has been quietly eyeing the archives of newspapers across the country, with the intent of making old newspaper content more accessible by creating a specialized search option for users. The search function is located in the Google News portion of the site and has its own separate link, "News Archive Search."

So far, Google has gained the permission of about 100 newspapers to digitalize and index a trove of back issues. "Our approach is, let's help people find all this great old news," says Jim Gerber, director of content partnerships at Google.

Unlike a regular search, in an archive search Google's crawlers look beyond sites' firewalls, including many news aggregators like Factiva. The search results link directly to the site, meaning a user cannot circumvent paying for material. One search brings up a 1933 Washington Post article. Click on the link and an abstract of the story appears, but requires the user to pay.

The New York Times, which let Google index its archive dating back to 1851, has several parameters. Content dating from 1923 to 1986 requires a searcher to pay for access ($3.95 per article or a package of 10 articles for $15.95). Any content from 1987 or newer is free. New York Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty says the Gray Lady chose 1986 as a cutoff date because most people's searches encompass material from 1987 onward. New York Times articles from 1851-1922 are free because they are in the public domain. (Home-delivery subscribers to the New York Times already receive free access to all archived material.)

Google's pitch to newspapers is that it will digitize content, index it, and then share the revenue collected through its Ad Sense program. "We are bringing their historical archives to life," says Gerber. Google can scan microfilm sent from publishers, but more often it gets permission from the paper to work though aggregation microfilm firms like ProQuest and Heritage. Gerber notes, "The majority of our newspaper partners scan their content via aggregators. A small number" ? less than a dozen ? "will ship us microfilm directly."

Sometimes, when a user conducts a search, older material pops up with a look and feel similar to microfilm. A reader can "flip" through the "paper," zoom in, and zoom out.

With more than 1,400 dailies and 6,200 weeklies in the U.S., Google is going to have to convince many more publishers to jump on board with this initiative. To entice newspapers that might be wary of such a project, the news archive search is a non-exclusive partnership, Gerber says ? once the initial term has run its course. "They have the ability to walk away and turn it off," he adds. For the most part, the news-paper does not get the digital files.

Google is currently in talks with many newspapers, and the practice is gaining traction. "It's a win for our users, a win for our publisher partners, and a win for Google," Gerber adds. "If we can help users find more good content online, they will want to do more searches on Google."