Google has added a new folder to its enormous search database: News Archive Search.

Is is a bit similar to Google Books, which lets you search the text of books scanned by Google.

Google is fetching news data from publishers like Time, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Guardian and the Washington Post, and from news aggregators like Factiva, LexisNexis, Thomson Gale and HighBeam Research.

The idea is to index the full-text of 200 years of news articles, free sources as well as information that requires a fee.

The News Archive Search page has a search form for exploring the historical material. Results from the News Archive may also be included in regular web search results or news search listings.

The advanced search page lets you limit the search to a specific time period, language, source or price. There are also menu based quasi-boolean search options.

You can also limit searches to a specific period or news source by clicking on alternatives listed in the left hand column of search result pages.

Historians will love this feature, as will anyone trying to analyse the causes of current events.

And Google, of course, has made another step towards the ultimate goal: To make all existing information available accessible to their users. Welcome “Big Thought”!

We like it.

See also:
Search Engine Watch: Google Debuts 200 Year News Archive Search