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I feel the same as Richard.  I know many family history researchers in Canada, who have enjoyed the use of Paper of Record.  This resource was very valuable.  Google has taken it away without any suitable replacement.  I understand that you "are currently working on the most effective way to search and browse this valuable content".  That is good, but in the meantime you could have left it availbale in its current form until you have a suitable replacement.  Why do you not continue to offer it in its previous form until you have a suitable replacement?

I was soooo disappointed to find that I could not access the archives for The Temiskaming Speaker.  It included a wealth of information for my family tree research.  I sure hope that all Paper of Record resources will be available as soon as possible. 

 

respond to the first poster's question...it's the least that should be done at this point.

I was so upset along with the other responses, I need the Australian Newspaper back now, THE PORT PHILLIP HERALD is the ONLY newspaper available online covering the early years of settlement in the State of Victoria Australia. I started with Paper of Record from it's beginning by paying a yearly fee to help support the digitisation which later became free. I am angry and need some justification as to what exactly is going be be available as I use this resource for writing. It is very important to be able to see the digital version.

 

While a lot of this content has been made available through Archive search, we're still refining processes to include incompatible newspaper images in our index. We're also working with certain publishers to acquire the rights to display their content.  All of this takes time, and we appreciate your patience. We're constantly making improvements to ensure the best user experience.

I add my name to this growing list.  I would like very much to get back to my research.  I need access to these two Yukon newspapers.

Why couldn't this transfer over to Google have been handled more openly and more smoothly?  Our email addresses ought to be in the paperofrecord.com database.  Why not send a group email to all recent users explaining what has happened and what is going to be done (and when) to return our access to these newspapers.

Google, what you have done to Paper of Record is pure evil. And don't try to pawn off the "with certain publishers to acquire the rights to display their content" garbage: the vast majority of PoR's content was out of copyright. There ARE no "rights" to the Kingston Chronicle and Gazette, 1833-145 (4051 pages now lost to public access), the Berliner Journal, 1859-1879 (4,121 pages), the Charlottetown Examiner, 1860-1874 (619 pages), the Qu'Appelle Vidette from the time of the Riel Rebellions (3,860 pages), etc., etc., etc.

 

I, too, have had ongoing research pulled out from under my feet by Google; the stats above are from my checklist of sources I had already worked through.

 

Not good enough, Google. Not nearly good enough.

 

While you're working on your new interface, RESTORE THE OLD ONE.

 

Evil, evil, pure evil.

As has been suggested now by several responders, it could all be so easily put right by 1) providing us with a more complete explanation (and apology); 2) temporarily reactivating the old PoR service in its full and old form;  and, 3) posting notices on that website as and when individual newspapers are transferred across to your Google newspaper archive website.  It would also be a courtesy  to PoR users to provide an explanation when they connect to the old PoR website before they are whisked away to the Google website.   It's not that difficult.

A search on the web shows other discussion lists elsewhere struggling with the same issue as this discussion list.

Google is fumbling the ball.We were researching the Sporting News and find it terribly frustrationg to not be able to find the site paperofrecord.com with its valuable data base.I feel that Google shoud speed up the process and make what is available to the general public,and work on what neeeds to be done with a top priority,like NOW.

As a member of the Society of American Baseball Research, we rely heavily on the Sporting News content thru the years for most valuable information and am extremely disappointed that Google has not acted on our behalf nor have they given the publiic a valid answer as to what the holdup is on receiving what we all need.

It looks like either Google owns worldvitalrecords.com or has control of some of its newspaper databases.

As for the other PoR newspapers listed on worldvitalrecords.com, I don't know whether they are there or not. It might be listed at the front end but it may not be available.

Google is just so evil.   Powerful and evil.  And everywhere.

In response to my posting on the Australian and New Zealand History discussion list, which I understand may have been cross posted to the Canadian History Discussion list, I have received supportive emails about our situation from around the world.  It might be wise at this point to remove discussion to our respective association discussion lists with appropriate cross postings.  This list is run by Google.

Google can come up with all the excuses in the world, but it doesn't answer what has really happened to our website "Paper Of Record.com"

Come on,Google lets hear the REAL answers from you?

Google is costing us time and money by not having reference to the Sporting News.This was a free search for several years and has left all of us baseball researchers out in the cold.

Society of American Baseball Research.

(Thousands of members).

Many users as me are in shock with the recent  disappearance of the search engine for Paper of Record. Im from Chiapas, Mexico and it was a very important sourece to continue the works from the local university. I'd like to know what plans you have for making the Paper of Record interface search engine available. Many people here is worry about it.

 

Valente

I would like to add my concern to the current discussion. There were two major Black abolitionist papers published in Canada before the Civil War, and the first of them, the VOICE OF THE FUGITIVE was available online at Paper of Record. It worked wonderfully and was a superb resource. It is not accessible at all now.

 

Why can't Google use the Paper of Record interface until it has its own interface ready?  I have students at Toronto's York University in the middle of a course on African Canadian history who were using this resource extensively. Now they cannot access it.

 

PLEASE put this back online. This is a real disaster for researchers and students alike. There is no publisher to deal with as this has been out of copyright for more than 100 years!

 

Karolyn Smardz Frost

I suggest we all call Google's marketing manager at:

 

Google.com 650-253-0000
866-246-6453
Switchboard
General
Advertising Press 0
Press 22 for a live customer rep.

 

And complain loudly and demand a resolution.

There is also - in my personal view - an issue of Canadian heritage ending up in the hands of a foreign multinational which is proving unresponsive to the needs of Canadians.  Consequently you might also like to contact your Member of Parliament.

The webs address for the CLA is www.cla.ca, where you can find contact details.    If you elect to send an email, it can be sent to info@cla.ca  

I am shattered to read what has happened to PoR.  As an Australian family researcher this website was a source of information that became invaluable to family history.  Google there was NOTHING wrong with the website and it's format.  You have taken down a website that was essential for so many around the world!  Shame on you! 

Have some consideration for people who use PoR and put it back up so we can continue to use it.  If Google wants to get a bad name and irritate people then you are doing a mighty fine job of it.

Im yet another very annoyed avid user of Paper of record going back many years and was more than happy to pay a subscription to access the Papers. My favourite paper was the Pt Phillip Herald (Live in Adelaide) but the scanning on much of the later papers is poor and the search engine will not find your request which means downloading a possible page and read it myself.  I cannot understand 2 things. 1.  why is this being discussed on a google web site. 2. The Paper of Record was sold to Google prior to October 2006 and from early 2007 was free. (The site was down for a few months while they converted to Free use.)  Now after being free and operated by Google its pulled some 2 years later)

Until Google sorts out this mess and considers the ownership of the data should lie with the owners of the hard copy I will avoid using Google as much as possible.

Obviously we have all been so happy with Paper of Record that its demize is a great shock, and the site was probably the only site to have good coverage of the USA and Canada unlike other sites that have very poor coverage and want you to sign up to a never ending subscription.  UCR has a good site for Calfornia (Free).  Even Google appears to have no Archives that I can find. Even Ancestry is useless as the results of a search can be 200 items only listing the newspaper and no subject.???????.

Bob Huggins and his team had done a fantastic job of this site but its so tragic that it was sold to such an invasive  company as Google.

Sincerity to help users of these sites is alive and well in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and United Kingdom but has turned sour  from the pursuit of money in the USA (except  UCR)  Come on Google. Come ON !

I would like to add my support and vote of thanks to Mr Huggins in taking this initiative.  I hope Google will respond in a positive and supportive way.

This is from the National Post -- Toronto Newspaper

 

onday, March 30, 2009

Google transfer slows research: academics
Old Newspapers; Archive taken offline during handover to search giant

Michael McKiernan,  National Post 

 

Google has been "organizing the world's information" for more than a decade, but a group of historians has accused the search engine giant of making a big mess in its little corner of the globe.

In the middle of the dispute is a tiny Ottawa-based Internet venture that sold its archive of digitized historical newspapers to Google two years ago.

 

The content of PaperOfRecord.comhas recently become unavailable on the Web, as Google seeks to transfer it to its own properties, but the move has stymied the researchers who use it. Karolyn Smardz Frost, a professor at York University has recommended the site for years to students of her African-Canadian History class because its holdings included the anti-slavery newspaper the Voice of the Fugitive, which was published in Canada before the American Civil War. She herself used POR extensively to research her 2007 book I've Got a Home in Glory Land, which earned her a Governor General's Award for non-fiction in the same year.

 

"It was so easy to use. The wonderful thing about it was the ability to search so specifically. You could type in the name of a person and find any mention of them," she said. "It wasn't perfect -- it could miss some words depending on the microfilm condition, but it's certainly better than sifting through reels of microfilm yourself."

That's what her students must do now if they want to see the Voice of the Fugitive themselves.

 

"I feel like a slight prima donna for making a fuss over this, but there are two stages to research: On the one hand you have to locate the information and then you have to analyze what you find," she said. "The digitization saves so much time. This has cut off one of my hands."

 

POR shrunk the world for Dr. Robin McLachlan. The retired history professor lives in a cabin on a farm about 200 kilometres west of Sydney, Australia. But from that remote location, he explored 19th-century Dawson City through its two Gold-Rush-era newspapers, the Yukon World and Yukon Sun, researching a book on Australians who made the trip to prospect for gold.

"If there was ever a breakthrough in research methods for historians, this has to be on the short list," he said.

 

Now he must organize an interlibrary loan that will bring the nearest microfilm halfway across the world from British Columbia to Canberra, the Australian capital: "It's a serious research problem," he said.

 

The problem stems from a deal between PaperOfRecord and Google that was struck in 2006. The agreement switched POR from a paid subscription service to a free one, allowing POR to continue its digitization work, bankrolled by Google. The Internet giant exercised its right to buy the content, although POR continued operating until mid-January, when visitors were redirected to Google's News Archive page. The POR content, however, is not yet available.

 

A Google spokesperson says it was POR's decision to shut down and redirect users, but the small company's co-founder, Bob Huggins, insisted his deal with Google contractually obliged him to cease operations as of January.

 

Mr. Huggins said his site had made 20 million pages available from newspapers dating back as far as 500 years, with the site receiving one million hits per month. He was upset by the timing of the switch and says he has consistently offered to turn the service back on until all of PaperOfRecord's content can be transferred to Google's News Archive service. He has fielded hundreds of complaints from disgruntled academics since his Web site closed.

 

"[Google] have really dropped the ball. I have no idea why they would cut this off, when they're not ready to replace it," he said. "I specifically warned them that a switch-over in the middle of an academic year was unwise."

 

William Flood, halfway through his MA in history at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, says the disruption has affected his work in the two months since POR shut down. He used the Port Phillip Herald to research the early settlement of Australia. The newspaper was one of the first archived by POR in a global portfolio that included publications from more than 10 countries, but is now unavailable in the Google version.

 

"It's completely changed the way I research," he said. "I think I'll finish on time, but it will put the quality of my research in danger."

Dan Clancy, an engineer with Google's News Archive project, sympathized with the plight of researchers caught in the middle of the transition.

 

"Of course some people will be disadvantaged in the interim, but we hope that, in the long term everyone will benefit. That's why we're doing a detailed analysis on the availability and searchability of content and reaching out to more people," he said.

 

Despite his anger over Google's handling of the transition, Mr. Huggins still believes his 500-year database of history is in good hands in the long term.

 

"I think the vision we had is important, and I'm pleased that someone with pockets as deep as Google's has taken it on," he said. "We came up with this simple system to do it, but since then we've been in limbo, waiting for Google to come up with the magic."

 

Thank you for hanging in--

Bob Huggins

PaperofRecord.com

My Mexican colleagues in the Mexican Association of Economic History have written a formal protest to Google. I am posting it on their behalf.

 

 

PROTESTA

La Asociación Mexicana de Historia Económica (AMHE) protesta
enérgicamente porque Google ha impedido el acceso a los periódicos
mexicanos digitalizados y almacenados en Paper of Record.

Paper of Record funcionó desde 2004 como un sitio para revisar las
versiones digitalizadas de distintos acervos hemerográficos. En
México, Paper of Record recibió los fondos de la Biblioteca y la
Hemeroteca nacionales digitalizados por la empresa Cold North Wind de
México (1, 2). Esta empresa fue una filial de Cold North Wind, la
compañía canadiense editora de Paper of Record, establecida en
conjunto con Carlos Álvarez del Castillo Gregory, dueño del periódico
tapatío "El Informador". El proceso fue similar en países como Estados
Unidos y Canadá, de tal modo que Paper of Record se convirtió en un
vasto repositorio digital de periódicos antiguos.

Con más de 490 títulos, Paper of Record se volvió una referencia
indispensable y de extraordinaria utilidad para la investigación en
historia y humanidades. Paper of Record fue el portal electrónico más
grande de periódicos históricos en lenguaje español, cubriendo tres
siglos y más de 20 millones de páginas de noticias.

Paper of Record firmó un convenio con Google en 2006, por el cual
recibió financiamiento para continuar digitalizando periódicos
antiguos. Sin embargo, desde mediados de enero de 2008, Google impidió
el acceso a los acervos de información de Paper of Record (3). Cada
vez que se intenta acceder al sitio de Paper of Record
(http://www.paperofrecord.com), el usuario termina en el incompleto
proyecto hemerográfico de Google News
(http://news.google.com/archivesearch). El resultado es que no se
puede entrar a los periódicos mexicanos, por más que se manipulen los
términos o las configuraciones de búsqueda.

Así, Google ha impedido la difusión de numerosos periódicos mexicanos
del siglo XIX y XX. Esta acción atenta contra la investigación
histórica y documental sobre México. Algunos de los periódicos que ya
no se pueden consultar son: El Monitor Republicano, El Siglo Diez y
Nueve, El Economista Mexicano, etc.

Por lo antes expuesto, la Mesa Directiva de la AMHE:
DIFUNDE la información hasta ahora disponible sobre el problema.
PROTESTA y EXHORTA a Google a que restablezca el acceso a Paper of
Record, por considerar que este sitio se convirtió en una fuente
imprescindible para la realización de investigaciones históricas de
importancia sobre México y América del Norte.
INVITA a organizaciones como el Comité Mexicano de Ciencias Históricas
y a redes como H-México, a sumarse a la protesta.

Mesa Directiva y Consejo de Honor de la Asociación Mexicana de
Historia Económica, A. C.
México, D. F., 13 de abril de 2009

Referencias:
(1) Rosa María Chavarría, “Crearán hemeroteca digital de México”,
Gaceta UNAM, 17 de junio de 2002, p. 27, en
http://www.dgcs.unam.mx/gacetaweb/2002/17jun02.pdf (consultado el 31
de marzo de 2009).
(2) UNAM, Convenio de colaboración que celebran por una parte la UNAM
y por la otra parte Cold North Wind de México, 2002, en
http://132.248.45.6/Volumes/UNAM-OCI/pdf/n383-11961-457-22-iii-02.pdf
(consultado el 31 de marzo de 2009).
(3) Michael McKiernan, “Google transfer slows research: academics”,
National Post, 30 de marzo de 2009, en
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/story.html?id=1443151 (consulado el 31
de marzo de 2009).
(4) AMHE, “Fuentes y archivos electrónicos para la historia
económica”, Boletín Asociación Mexicana de Historia Económica, 2004,
p. 44, en http://www.economia.unam.mx/amhe/boletin/BOLETIN-4.pdf
(consultado el 31 de marzo de 2009).

This document is sent on behalf of the Directive Board and Honor Council of
the Mexican Economic Association (AMHE, www.amhe.org.mx), and may be
consulted at http://www.economia.unam.mx/amhe/publi/anuncio113.html. Please
let your colleagues know about this situation. You may also post this message
in other academic mail lists.

Terry Murray

PaperofRecord.com is being offered as it was before the Google purchase. All the newspapers that have ever appeared on POR,  we own all IP and rights to the digitized material.  We are beginning with Colleges and Universities as they have a means of IP authentication.  We currently have 12 institutions signed up and ready to go for next week. SABR has been sent details and we are expecting them onboard. We are trying to get this resource back up after being offline, with little resources.  I'd be pleased to answer any questions to avoid much of the speculation we're seeing on blogs etc. Elvis is dead. 

 - Best

 Bob Huggins

This is for Mr Huggins.  When you have POR back on line would you please post  a notice on this discussion list with a list of the participating libraries.  Do you have any libraries in Australia signed up?  If not, would you please contact the National Library of Australia and invite them to participate.  Thank you.  And, good luck!

 

 Terry

   The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). The public page for SABR is  www.sabr.org. Steve

 

Klondike Rob

When we announced [1] our initiative to make old newspapers available and searchable online last September, we shared our plan to help readers access all of the world's newspapers online. Since then we've made millions of newspaper articles available online for free. Our vision today remains the same, and content that we acquired from Paper of Record is an important part of our plan to make more newspaper content available to everyone.

Many of you have asked about our specific plans regarding newspapers originally digitized by Paper of Record.  We wanted to give you an update on our progress, and to clear up some misunderstandings.  As part of our ongoing efforts to make more old newspapers accessible and searchable online, we acquired a number of titles from Paper of Record.  Most of the titles that we acquired from Paper of Record are online and fully searchable. In fact, in many cases we digitized the content again to improve the quality of the images and the OCR.  However, there are some titles provided by Paper of Record that currently are not live on Google News Archive Search.  For those titles we have the right to display, we're in the process of bringing them online and making them viewable via Google News Archive, along with other sources we've digitized or crawled from the web.  That means that if you're looking for material originally acquired by Paper of Record, it likely falls into one of three groups:


*4.91M articles representing 522 titles obtained from Paper of Record are now live on Google News Archive search.  This includes previously live content as well as content added as of this week from Paper of Record, all free of charge.  Please note that all articles from these titles may not be comprehensively available, but will otherwise be made available in browse-only mode within 3 months.  The full list is here [2].


*~0.5M pages representing 381 titles obtained from Paper of Record will be made available in browse-only mode within 3 months, also free of charge.  The full title list is here [3]. Many of the images we obtained were of low quality, and we were therefore unable to get quality text after following the OCR process.  We are working to put up content from these titles so that they can be browsed.


*Finally, for these 10 titles here [4], we don't have the rights to display these newspapers.  We've reached out to the publishers who hold rights to these papers, but not all want to participate in Google's programs.  To access these, you may need to travel to a library if you can't find an online source, or contact the publisher directly.

Click here [5] for more information on how to find specific titles in the archive.  We will also be soon rolling out direct search which will allow the user to search and browse through newspaper titles directly.

I went to WorldVitalRecords.com and did a search on baseball manager, Tommy Lasorda. I got 434 Matches. No, I could not see these since I have not paid.

 

I then did a search based on keyword only and no name. Keyword was "St. Louis Browns." I got over 2,162 records. On the surface it looks like it works.  On the down side, you have to pay.  Any others have experiences thus far???

Thanks for the info on the return rate for the papers you mentioned. I am not doing any research with those papers, but wanted to thank you for thinking to post that information, which I'm sure will be helpful to those who are interested in those papers. It also made me think that I should do the same for any papers I work with... if I decide to pay the fee at WVR.