I keep writing about the wonders of Google Books’ archive of scanned magazines–most notably, the utter delight that is the complete LIFE. Every time I do, I pause to wonder why it’s practically impossible to find a magazine unless you know it’s there. Problem solved, mostly: Google Books now has a page with thumbnail images of all the magazines to be found there.

It’s not perfect–it’s an alphabetical listing, so you need to slog through three pages to see everything, and it won’t work once Google gets hundreds or thousands of titles online–but it’s a vast improvement on the previous state of affairs.

Some things about Google’s magazine project still confuse me. Why, for instance, is IDG’s weekly computer trade publication InfoWorld in Google Print, while its other weekly computer trade publication, Computerworld, lives in Google News, where it’s almost impossible to find unless you know how?

I still think we need a Google Magazines–a site devoted entirely to periodicals, and tailored to making it as easy as possible to browse, search, and find ’em. And I think the odds are pretty good that we’ll get one. Soon would be good…

 
1 Comment


Read more: Google, Magazines, Search Engines