Slashdot Mirror
Bringing the Library of Congress Newspapers Online
smooth wombat writes "If you want to read a newspaper article from sometime in the past (say 1920 for example) your only options right now are to go to your local library and hope they have a microfiche file of that paper or take a visit to Washington, DC and the Library of Congress. That may soon change. CNN is reporting that by 2006 the government will have the first of 30 million digitized pages from papers published from 1836 through 1922 which will be available to anyone who has a connection to the net. The project is a joint cooperation between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
The span of the joint project is limited because type faces of printers used before 1836 are too difficult for optical scanners to read, and copyright restrictions are in force on papers published after 1923."
I'm not so sure about the significance of the content, what did they write/read in 19th Century?
Obituaries and marriage announcements, for one this. This stuff will be a gold mine for genealogists.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
The fact that you have no idea what people wrote or read about shows the importance of making the materials more accessible.
These, to me, were always half the fun whenever I perused old microfiche in the library.
There is a bar in NYC called McSorley's, which has been in continuous existance since 1846 or so. They have framed newspaper articles on the wall from over a hundred years ago, 130 year old pictures, political campaign buttons from McKinley's run. Talk about a neat experience.
Actually seeing the old print would mean more to me. I rather hope that they serve images of the old papers, not just the computer-read text. But hey, that's just me.