As you probably already know, Google News has been uploading decades’ worth of newspapers’ microfilm archives and making them available for free (except in cases where the newspapers themselves charge to see the archives).
For instance, let’s say you’re writing a blog or story about the history of opposition to government-run health care. You don’t have to travel to the library and blow dust off reels of microfilm to unearth little tidbits like this warning of the ills of socialized medicine:
“A compulsory tax would create a moral hazard and hosts of citizens would demand medical service for trivialities.” (Letter to the editor, The Milwaukee Journal, Jan. 3, 1949.)
You can see the archives and try out some searches here.
In an overview, Google explains: “Users can search for events, people or ideas and see how they have been described over time.”
A recent segment by Palm Breeze CAFE, a weekly TV show by the Palm Beach County school district, offers a visual tutorial on both customizing your Google News page (first part of the video) and using the archive search (second part).
You can subscribe to the Palm Breeze CAFE’s video channel on YouTube here.
Thanks to Google News’ archive, even just browsing old newspaper advertisements can be an amusing diversion…
PalmBeachPost.com has tapped into Google News’ archive search by promoting a “Historical Archive” search box on our homepage and other pages. This pulls in archives from 1897-1988 from The Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach Daily News, Miami News, Tropical Sun and The Palm Beach Independent.
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