Google is gearing up an effort to digitize old newspapers, as it announced recently on its official blog. As it reports, "Over time, as we scan more articles and our index grows, we'll also start blending these archives into our main search results so that when you search Google.com, you'll be searching the full text of these newspapers as well."
Meanwhile, the Library of Congress has digitized many newspapers from 1890 to 1910 and will continue adding years of coverage in the future. That span covers quite a few legal matters of interest to true crime buffs (Lizzie Borden, for one).
I won't be giving up my subscription to Newspaperarchive.com any time soon, but these newest and growing resources will add to our ability to peek at pages of the past for whatever bloody subject interests us.
A resource of interest might be The Nambour Chronicle & North Coast Advertiser was first published 31st July 1903 and continued as the local newspaper for the Sunshine Coast Region (north of Brisbane, Australia) until 1983. It has been scanned from microfilm and made available, in digital format, the entire full text run of this newspaper from 1903 to 1955. Researchers are now able to search the entire paper by keyword or issue date and can download and print directly from the paper. This provides easy and convenient access to this valuable historical newspaper
http://www.nambour-chronicle.com/
Not on the same scale as the Google project but still worth a visit
Posted by: Greg | September 30, 2008 at 12:17 AM