18世紀新聞 Google找得到

18世紀新聞 Google找得到

【編譯謝璦竹／綜合六日電】

Google公司推出全新的新聞檢索服務，搜尋內容包括報紙、雜誌及其他出版品，最遠可搜尋到18世紀的新聞。

Google的新聞檔案搜尋服務（Google News Archive Search），可搜尋紐約時報、華盛頓郵報、華爾街日報、Guardian Unlimited（衛報和觀察家兩報的整合網站）、時代雜誌等知名報章雜誌，也包含既有的新聞搜尋網站或資料庫如Fac-tiva、Lexis- Nexis及HighBeam Research等。但Google沒有說明加入該計畫的業者總數。

使用者鍵入關鍵字後，可搜尋相關新聞全文，也可瀏覽按年份排列的新聞提要。 點選提要後，可進入個別新聞出版業者的網頁，瀏覽全文是否需付費須視該內容提供者的公司政策而定。收費及訂價都由業者自行辦理，Google不代為收費， 也不向業者或使用者收取費用。推出之初Google沒有銷售廣告。

使用者可透過Google搜尋網站或新的新聞檔案網站 （news.google.com/archivesearch）搜尋。Google新聞檔案搜尋的特色是，其中多數文件都是過去很難或根本無法透過搜尋 引擎找到的資料。Google的一般新聞搜尋僅能追溯過去30天內的新聞。

這項新服務中包含的資料庫屬於「黑暗網路」（Dark Web）的內容，原因是標準搜尋引擎無法將這些資料庫編目，因此搜尋不到。

Google這項計畫大受出版業者的歡迎，部分業者表示，為讓其內容可被搜尋已跟Google交涉多年。

總部在芝加哥的HighBeam Research電子圖書館執行長史班說：「我們一直邀請Google及其他搜尋引擎將我們的內容編目。」

HighBeam的資料庫包含3,300種出版物的4,000萬筆文件，部分可免費瀏覽，其餘僅可看到600字的提要，須付費才能瀏覽全文。費用為每月20美元，或按年計費一年100美元。

紐約時報有200萬筆文章可透過該服務搜尋到，年代最久遠者可追溯到1981年。時代雜誌自1923年創立以來的30萬筆文件則可全部免費瀏覽。

新服務也包含Google自行編目、沒有與出版商訂立正式合約的網頁內容。 去年法新社（AFP）就一狀告到美國哥倫比亞地方法院，指控Google提供的文章摘要及圖片已構成侵害版權。Google說它讓出版商自行決定是否退出 Google新聞，目前也已移除AFP的內容。

【2006/09/07 經濟日報】

Google opens up 200 years of news

Web giant Google is further expanding its online empire with the launch of the Google News Archive Search.

The web-based tool allows users to explore existing digitised newspaper articles spanning the last 200 years and more recent online content.

People using the search are shown results from both free and subscription-based news outlets.

Partners in the project include the websites of US newspaper the New York Times and the Guardian from the UK.

Other sources include news aggregators, websites which collect and display news stories from multiple sources.

"The goal here is to be able to explore history as it unfolded," said Anurag Acharya, an engineer at Google and one of the team behind the project.

"It's fascinating to see how people's attitudes and emotions have changed through time."

History lesson

The new service searches hundreds of different news sources to answer a user's query. The exact number of sources is confidential.

Results are presented in similar fashion to a Google News search, with "related" articles about the same event grouped together. Free and charged-for articles are displayed side by side.

The ability to browse this historical overview allows users to identify key time periods and get some sense of the flow of events Anurag Acharya

With pages from commercial websites, the cost of viewing them is also shown. Google says search results are based on relevance, not partnerships with companies.

Users can also view articles using a timeline that displays key dates associated with a story.

So the first Moon landing would highlight 1969 as a key date, but also identify other years when lunar landings took place or when the topic was in the news.

"The ability to browse this historical overview allows users to identify key time periods and get some sense of the flow of events," said Mr Acharya.

The earliest known searchable story is, he said, from "somewhere in the mid-1700s" - considerably older than the current 30-day archive offered through Google News.

The service is accessed through the news archive website or the Google news page. It is also activated when it can provide relevant results to a user's search on google.com.

In this case, links to the most relevant historical news articles are displayed separately above the normal search results.

Historical challenge

The launch of the news archive search extends Google's influence over how the world's information is indexed, searched and accessed.

According to online research firm Nielsen/NetRatings, more than 380 million people used the search engine every month in 2005.

The company is also expanding into areas other than search. In August it announced plans to offer consumers the chance to download and print classic novels free of charge.

"I'm strongly in favour of the democratisation of access to historical documents, but also cautious about how much information Google now controls," said Professor Roy Rosenzweig, a historian from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in the US.

He says that increasingly the model of how we access information and what information we have access to is changing, as public archives such as libraries are replaced by private companies. But, he says, he is "extremely excited" about Google's latest offering.

"As a scholar and historian I want as much information as possible, accessible to as many people as possible at the least cost, and the extent to which Google is doing that is compelling."

Google says it plans to launch the news archive search service on other international Google sites soon.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/5317942.stm

Published: 2006/09/06 05:31:18 GMT