Google will make newspapers' historic archives available online through Google News and eventually with the newspapers' own Web sites. The company began scanning microfilm Monday. Google News already has archives of some major newspapers and magazines because they were already available in digital form. I think this is a great idea. Newspapers are a reliable source of information that can be used by people to research for projects or just to look up something they are interested in. The easier access will be beneficial and will make more people go to newspaper sources instead of random, unreliable Web sites. It is also good to have this information available on the internet to make sure it does not get lost. I would definitely use Google News to find sources for papers or if I was looking for something that happened before the internet got popular. The only problem that I see is that it could take away from databases like Lexis Nexis and make them less used. In the long run, though, I think that this is a great idea that will be used and appreciated by a majority of people. Google is already the most popular search engine and they have to keep doing things like this to stay at the top of the game.
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I agree - Google News is a great source for reputable, diverse viewpoints. I think the only other problem that comes up from putting papers online is that it will be the death blow to the print industry and still may not bring in those readers who prefer the portability or ease of a print newspaper and are too set in their ways/stubborn to try out the internet (aka my grandparents).
I love it! As a librarian I'm always glad to have as much access to as many materials as possible. Knowing Google they'll make the content searchable, which is invaluable for research. I also think that there is nothing wrong with being a print-only reader. However, if your grandparents start doing a little genealogy research, this will be perfect.
There will probably continue to be features that providers like Lexis-Nexis and ProQuest will provide that Google will not. Just as there are good reasons to use Google Scholar and there are good reasons to use Academic Search Complete.
I think this is great! Historical information can build so much to research and news stories. The more newspaper information the better! Google will make this information easily accessible, so that makes it even better.
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