Google Provides Access to News Archives
I just read that today Google unveiled a new service, Google Archive Search, whereby it provides accessibility – i.e. search function – to various online news archives. I gather Google will serve the function of the traditional search index/abstract tool for the various news databases whose content has been made available to Google, and Google will direct searchers to those news sites. The news sites of course may (or likely will) charge for access to the full text of any selected articles. Searches will be free to the user. The archive search interface offers various ways of limiting searches – i.e. date range, price, language, and source (although I didn’t see any list of indexed sources). So Google now offers another key tool traditionally fee or subscription-based. This news story on CBC, among others, discusses further.
Internet users can already search on all those sites directly so I dont understand what service Google is offring other then bundeling all the links together in one consolidated search…which is cool. If you want to turbo charge these searches then download a netpass and you will be able to access many of these articles for free. the software is at http://www.congoo.com
I was similarly sceptical until I looked and found (to my utter amazement) my grandfather’s obituary in the Lethbridge Herald from April 1949. Since he never left Europe, Alberta was the last place I would have expected to find this information. And it is clearly not findable on any of the conventional search engines.
One would have to have had serendipity to even know it was there.
So Google is doing a real service.
My understanding is that Google is offering web users not only the ability to search several databases at once (not different from meta searches in the earlier graphical web days), but also search access to the full text content of databases much of which is not otherwise available on the open (free) web, and this through a single interface search. This is also not all that different from the kind of searches that have been possible for years via, for example, news indexes (e.g.) accessible for free through public library web sites (to card holders for that library) – and the latter would have the full content available for free too.
What is interesting to me is Google’s entry to this area with no cost to the user. I am not a big fan of the Googleization of the Internet (and OED notwithstanding, I have still not been able to bring myself to use “google” as a verb), as the result seems to be that Google is not only the default but often the only tool many web users turn to these days. Google’s search algorithm and relevance ranking have long been known to be effective, but, like any search engine, it cannot claim to be nearly comprehensive. This does not stop many users to consider a search complete once they run one Google search, generally without even using advanced search syntax. However, those behind Google again show themselves adept at attracting site traffic and, therefore, ad revenue.
I think they rushed this feature to keep up with Topix doing something similar last month. Both products look good. Nice additions.
I was sceptical about Canadian content so I did two quick searches:
1. “gay marriage” Canada. All the results appeared to be from US news sources only; however, searching on the timeline feature was very helpful in following the judical and legislative development of this in Canada.
2. “Stompin Tom Connors” – not surprisingly, this was almost exclusively Canadian sources.
This is not particularly a scientific result, certainly, and there are other alternatives as others have commented. I’m not sure its usefulness in academic research, but I would certainly use the timeline feature again.
My sense is that it’s almost exclusively North American content, though some Australian material got in, as well as some of the academic publications. There were also some online journals I’ve never encountered before with free access to full text. The academic research I did wasn’t on legal issues.
I then did a search on attornment to Canadian court jurisdiction and brought up an Affleck Greene newsletter, lots of unhelpful cases from Loislaw and Versuslaw, and a couple of subscription based pieces on Beals v. Saldanha. Plus you can pay $9.95 for a MBM piece on attornment by Brett Harrison, which is freely accessible through Google normal.
Bottom line – good for turning up unusual sources but do more conventional research first.