aka,
part 34151243543 in the continuing world takeover:
What is News archive search?
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.
Features of News archive search
* Search diverse sources from one place
* Browse timelines of events and stories related to specific queries
* Identify key time periods relevant to persons/events/ideas
* Discover a variety of viewpoints across time
How are articles ranked?
News archive search aims to rank results such that the articles/events that would be of interest to users exploring history appear first. We take into account the full text of each article, the publication in which the article appears, how often the underlying event has been referred to or described, in what manner and by whom.
I am amused by the options on the front page:
Start exploring with...
eisenhower estee lauder poincare conjecture bon jovi
julie andrews coco chanel abn amro wyatt earp
battle of stalingrad chicago bulls mitt romney football texans
marthas vineyard ansel adams lise meitner career guidance
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 17:43 (eighteen years ago)
BBC piece on the whole thing, etc. etc.:
The web-based tool allows users to explore existing digitised newspaper articles spanning the last 200 years and more recent online content.
People using the search are shown results from both free and subscription-based news outlets.
Partners in the project include the websites of US newspaper the New York Times and the Guardian from the UK.
Other sources include news aggregators, websites which collect and display news stories from multiple sources.
"The goal here is to be able to explore history as it unfolded," said Anurag Acharya, an engineer at Google and one of the team behind the project.
"It's fascinating to see how people's attitudes and emotions have changed through time."
The new service searches hundreds of different news sources to answer a user's query. The exact number of sources is confidential.
Results are presented in similar fashion to a Google News search, with "related" articles about the same event grouped together. Free and charged-for articles are displayed side by side.
With pages from commercial websites, the cost of viewing them is also shown. Google says search results are based on relevance, not partnerships with companies.
Users can also view articles using a timeline that displays key dates associated with a story.
So the first Moon landing would highlight 1969 as a key date, but also identify other years when lunar landings took place or when the topic was in the news.
"The ability to browse this historical overview allows users to identify key time periods and get some sense of the flow of events," said Mr Acharya.
The earliest known searchable story is, he said, from "somewhere in the mid-1700s" - considerably older than the current 30-day archive offered through Google News.
The service is accessed through the news archive website or the Google news page. It is also activated when it can provide relevant results to a user's search on google.com.
In this case, links to the most relevant historical news articles are displayed separately above the normal search results.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 17:51 (eighteen years ago)
I like this a *lot*. Finding old articles about WWII, or Capa's death, makes it seem like these are equally current with wars or the crocodile dude dying. It makes you feel connected to the past, if that's not an overly Make History Fun! way of putting it.
― stet (stet), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 17:53 (eighteen years ago)
Are there actually any new sources on it or is it just aggregating deep archives that have already been available through the web?
I had a trial subscription to The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985 archive a while ago. That really did rule and is a closed sub-only system not included on this.
It makes you feel connected to the past, if that's not an overly Make History Fun! way of putting it.
Lexis-Nexis has old newswires back to the 70s on it. I used to find it really weird finding the first reports of Lennon's shooting and such like.
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 19:27 (eighteen years ago)
I know he was a programmer....I bet he was an ops guy, actually. They're far more likely to have the beltclip.
Not that the programmers at Google arn't similarly bad, but actually I find the ones who spend too much of their money on expensive clothes that dont' work well for them even more annoying...
― mikef (mfleming), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 19:54 (eighteen years ago)