The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 12, March 25, 2007, Article 23

SEARCHING OLD NEWSPAPERS USING OCR

Dick Johnson forwarded a March 21 article published in the RootsWeb
Review email newsletter about web sites where researchers can search
old newspapers for information.  "Search Old Newspapers by OCR" was
written by Russ Sprague of Kensington, Maryland:

"In recent months, I've found three sites where you can view images
Of old newspaper pages and search them for names, places, or events
Using simple or more complex search terms. The search is accomplished
By Optical Character Recognition (OCR). OCR is not perfect but it is
A powerful search tool that can search thousands of newspaper pages
In seconds.

"OCR works because newsprint is fairly standard, as opposed to
handwriting. Depending on the image quality, it may not always pick
up names and phrases as expected or may include stray unexpected
material. As a rule however, it is a very powerful and fast method to
find articles of interest (marriage announcements, obituaries, births,
etc.).

"One site is from NNYLN (Northern New York Library Network) at
news.nnyln.net

"The other site with northern New York papers is at
fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

"This next site was referred to me recently and is truly international.
It can be found at paperofrecord.com

"I've absolutely lost track of all the great information I've found
from these sites. The images are large and can take time to load so it
helps to have a high-speed Internet connection."

To read the complete article, see (scroll down): Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum