Google to offer search of old magazines

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San Francisco: Google is teaming up with dozens of publishers to index old magazines and make them available online, according to a blog posting by the company. The move is another facet of Google's ambition to organize the world's information and comes two years after the tech search giant embarked on a scheme to scan and index millions of books. In September, the company launched a project to digitize newspaper archives, making millions of old newspaper articles searchable online. The new offering allows users to browse magazine covers and to delve into individual issues, which will be presented in exactly the same way as they first appeared in print, including all the ads. The magazine pages will be shown alongside contemporary Google ads and links to publishers' web sites. Dozens of publishers have already signed on for the project. Among the magazines already available are New York Magazine, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science and Ebony. "Over time, as we scan more articles, you'll see more and more magazines appear in Google book search results," wrote Dave Foulser, the software engineer in charge of the project.  "Eventually, we'll also begin blending magazine results into our main Google.com search results, so you may begin finding magazines you didn't even know you were looking for," he said.