Google News Archive has recently implemented a new feature which makes it 10 times easier to browse through the thousands of pages of historical newspapers they a) acquired from Paper of Record and b) have been digitizing.
The new feature allows you to browse the issues & you see them in a convenient date sorted format. While I’ve been aware that there are NC newspapers digitized, until now, it’s been difficult to know exactly how many issues from each paper have been included.
North Carolina papers you’ll find in their collection are below, but note, the indicated time span does not mean every issue is included — be cognizant that there are gaps:
- Cumberland County: Fayetteville Observer — 1939-2002 (240+ issues)
- Davidson County: Times-Dispatch – 1889-2007 (14,000+ issues)
- Henderson County: Times-News – 1890-1927 (6,800+ issues)
- New Hanover County: Wilmington Star-News – 1962-2007 (almost 11,000 issues)
- Polk County: Polk County News – 1902-1926 (600+ issues)
In addition to these papers, there are papers digitized from other states around the county, as well as from other countries. I’ve compiled a list of papers I’ve found in the Archive, though the list is likely not to be complete. You can view a spreadsheet here.
Here are some aspects of Google News Archive that you’ll need to know about in order to use the site most effectively.
1) When you click on a link to view the digitized issues be sure to click the advance button if you don’t see more than one column of papers. There are gaps in the collection so even though the screen view may show 40-50 years time span, there may be a big gap in the collection.
2) You can change the view displayed by using the drop down menu in the top left corner of the screen. I personally recommend the “decade” view for a quick overview and the “year” view for finer tuning. Other views available include “month,” “week,” & “day”
