Tuesday's Tool: Google News Archive

You are likely familiar with the Google News Search and probably have used it at some point to find something in the last 30 days of news. Need something older or want to get a sense of the timeline of how something evolved historically? Then check out the new tool Google unveiled on September 6th, the Google News Archive Search, which searches 200 years of news sources.

Google's official description:

News archive search provides an easy way to search and explore historical archives. Users can search for events, people, ideas and see how they have been described over time. In addition to searching for the most relevant articles for their query, users can get an historical overview of the results by browsing an automatically created timeline. Search results include both content that is accessible to all users and content that requires a fee. Articles related to a single story within a given time period are grouped together to allow users to see a broad perspective on the events.

This is certainly not the only tool to search archives, but it is a familiar tool for users. Library staff referring patrons there should know that as of this writing, although results display in a timeline sort of format, there is no straight date narrowing on the results page (though there is a date search feature in advanced search) [see this post from the Tales from the Terminal Room newsletter]. Another important factor is that while not all of the resources returned are available free (and the fees levied are from the information providers and do not go to Google), many libraries will have subscriptions to some of this content already.

For much more information and valuable critiques, this link is to an excellent review of the service by Chris Sherman at Search Engine Watch and this link is to a very lengthy commentary on it by Gary Price at ResourceShelf.

SUBJECTS: TUESDAY'S TOOL