Google abandons newspaper scanning project

Google has announced that it will shut down its News Archives project, an initiative aimed at digitizing the world’s newspapers and making them available online.

In an email sent to numerous partners including the Boston Phoenix, Google said it would no longer accept, scan, and index archival material from newspapers. The search giant will instead focus on “newer projects that help the industry, such as Google One Pass, a platform that enables publishers to sell content and subscriptions directly from their own sites.”

Google’s News Archives project began five years ago and currently has material from about 2,000 newspapers. Users will still be able to access and search for newspaper material at the News Archives website, but there will be no further updates or added functionality.

The fee Google would have charged newspapers to purchase the digital scans is now going to be waived. Also waived are the rights to use the material elsewhere with other partners.