Google newspaper archives?

I engaged in the narcissistic task of Googling myself this evening, as I do when it occurs to me every few weeks. I've been out of the business for almost five years now, so a lot of the articles that used to appear in a Google search have dropped off or whatever happens to them on the Internet. But tonight I found two new entries. The links were from Google News, and they were to two of the more than 1,000 articles I wrote in my six years or so. The curious thing was that it linked to a scanned copy of the newspaper, so I was able to see the entire edition as it originally appeared in 2002. Anybody have any idea what this is about?

This is not to blow my own horn, but just to show you what it looks like:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1559&dat=20020324&id=jjEXAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jyEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2739,5683355

 

This service has been available for quite a while, depending on what you're looking for; if you're finding new results, it's probably either a) Google's search capability improving, which is ongoing; or b) Google has acquired new sources, which also is ongoing.

For instance, Google last year acquired the rights to the archives held by PaperofRecord.com, which formerly had access to old issues of The Sporting News (among other publications). Once Google makes TSN and the other ex-PaperofRecord papers available, they'll start showing up in "news searches" like this one.

 

I looked at this to see how it worked, and I find that the pages are out of order, and there's no front page. Google, what's up with that?

 

Just an FYI - Google will not make TSN available; it was not part of the deal. Another site acquired those rights (I can't remember the name; I have it at home, they charge $5/month I believe). SABR is looking into adding the "membership" into its perks.

Also, I've found that there are very little old-time papers yet on Google - NY Times (which you can get through the NY times) and a couple of smaller papers, Bradenton or Tarpon Springs is one, I think.

 

I stumbled on a scanned page froma 1980s Gainesville, Fla., paper while hunting something the other day.

 

Yeah, the old pages/articles that show up in search results are usually affiliated with Proquest, Ancestry or Newsbank. You have to have a subscription to access any of those.