I have long been a fan of newspaper digitisation projects whose contents are available freely on the web. Paper of Record and the Australian Newspaper Digitisation Project spring rapidly to mind. These are of extraordinary value to sports historians so accustomed to winding their way through dozens of microfilm reels of unindexed newspapers in search of gold.
The Google News Archive has been around for a while. I was never a huge fan, because much of its content was not available for free. Just returning to it last week, I find a massive chunk of Fairfax newspapers (i.e. Melbourne's Age and the Sydney Morning Herald can be searched and viewed for free. I am not sure of the exact date range, but I am finding articles on Sydney (soccer) football and rugby league from a century ago. The articles appear in PDF and are beautiful to look at. However, I am not quite sure yet how to print successfully.
Still, definitely a development to watch out for. I had thought the Fairfax newspapers were going to appear on the Australian Newspaper Digitisation Project one day. but it seems someone has beaten the NDP to the punch.
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