Google’s plans for global empire, by way of digitizing a bunch of dusty old newspapers, received a strong boost today, now that Mountain View has secured the archives of paperofrecord.com. Paper of Record has been digitizing entire newspaper archives, including the Toronto Star as well as other international newspapers, for some time now. With those archives now under its control, there’s nothing to stop Google from marching on Capital City, Earth. That, or merely being a convenient place to search old headlines. “Gee, I wonder how the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported the moon landing?”
There you go.
Yay, the post-gazette! The terrible rag that I read every day at work that costs way too much money.
But how can we access the google version of “Paper of Record?”
HAN TRUNCADO TODA LA DIFUSIÓN DE LA CULTURA GENEALÓGICA!!!!!!!!!!!
Don I just experienced being redirected in the middle of using Paper of Record and directed to Google News Archive, which did not have the years of the paper that I had been researching. As always the little man gets shafted!!! Shame Google News and Shame Paper of Record, an absolute disregard for your customers!!!!! Disgraceful!!!!!!
You might know when the lowly common family genealogist has access to old newspapers, which greatly helps locate ancestor information, it MUST be taken away and totally screwed up. Thanks much.
Maybe Google should offer a statement as to their intentions so users would know what to expect.
The very least courtesy that could be expected when redirected to the Google site is what they plan to do, how and when users can expect to access the archives again. What the cost is going to be (I’m sure there will be one).
It’s a very poor business plan that redirects without planning ahead and having a site prepared for immediate use. It’s been a week and still not a word.
I’m very disappointed in both Paper of Record (Cold North Wind) and with Google.
Laurie
Where, oh where, has integrity gone? Not to mention ALL OF MY BLOODY RESEARCH!!! Fie on you, Paper of Record. Piss on you, Google.
I think the least that Paper of Record could have done was to send a notice to it’s current subscribers that Google was taking over!!!!
I also think that the least that Google could have done was make the site work BEFORE putting it out to the public, which only provided total exasperation for ANYONE trying to access Paper of Record!
It’s absolutely appalling what Paper of Record and Google have done! I used to be able to get enormous amounts of information from the newspapers that were contained on the original website and would check back regularly to see if any of the areas that I was looking into had the papers information updated. Now I’m redirected to the most useless site I have ever experienced. What a waste of time this Google News Archive is!
Does anyone know what Google intends to do with the archives? Has anyone been able to contact anyone in either Google or Cold North Wind?
Paper of Record was a fantastic site for genealogical research. I went into it today …. or thought I was …. to track down a mystery, only to be redirected to a Google search site. I’m floored. Why would an organization like Paper of Record do such a thing? And then to have the site information taken down and not accessible? What is the purpose of this? AAAAHHHHH!!!!!
What the hell. Where’s the integrity here. Especially in regard to the Mexican news archives. I am writing a thesis on an indigenous rebellion that took place in Oaxaca on the eve of the Revolution, and now, with this useless Google search I am totally screwed. Way to go!
Cuitlahuac–
At the Hemeroteca Nacional in Mexico City you can access all of the same newspapers that were available on POR. They have it all digitized and searchable.
C
Thanks for telling us about the Mexican Library that has this material.
You forgot to give us a link on how to reach the facility to use this data.
Here’s what a friend of mine found out. –
Thank you so very much for your help in my endeavor. I took it upon myself to call the Sporting News paper, and after 18 calls I finally got to the right person. He said he admired my determination for not giving up. Unfortunately my suspicion was right. He told me that google had bought the archive (Paper of Record) from the fellow in Canada that was nice enough to list it for free for us. The bad news as I suspected is Google bought the whole deal for 3 million dollars, and he thinks they will eventually relist it for a per article fee. Every other paper they list is $3.95 an article which would break me. Greeds a terrible thing. I fortunately found another web site, http://www.newspaperarchive.com which lists any amount you want to print for like $15.00 a month which is very reasonable. So I’ve been able to find quite a bit at a very fair price. Maybe this will help you in your research, check it out if you get a chance.
I had been using Paper of Record to do some family and local history research – it was great. Now I find out that it has been purchased by Google and may only be available at a prohibitive cost per article. I had no pre-notification that this was about to happen. This mainly hurts the “little guy” who is trying to find out a little bit about their family/local history.
Shame on you Google.
Shame on you, Google.
I loved Paper of Record. Fuck Paper of Record, but most of all Fuck Google. I will not forget!