In keeping with this week's theme of reviewing some of the existing (free) information resources for conducting research. Today's quick hit is Google's News Archive Search (http://news.google.com/archivesearch), a news search utility that allows the searcher to quickly peer back in time by searching old  editions of newspapers. Results are presented in PDF images, and while not of the best quality, are readable. I did a sample search for Dred Scott, and found a good list of articles pertaining to the decision.

While News Archive is not yet comprehensive,  Google is continuing to add to the index (see their acquisition of paperofrecord.com); hopefully they'll continue building and improving the search functionality, as this could become a valuable tool for students and researchers.