The Joy of Time Travel via the LIFE Magazine Photo Archive
Uh-oh. As if the latest economic news wasn't scary enough, Google just introduced a new productivity-killing tool that is all but guaranteed to shave a few points off this quarter's projected GDP growth figures. The culprit: Google's digitization of the vast photo archives of the former LIFE magazine. Google's official blog explains:
We're excited to announce the availability of never-before-seen images
from the LIFE photo archive. This effort to bring offline images online
was inspired by our mission to organize all the world's information and
make it universally accessible and useful. This collection of newly-digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by LIFE dating all the way back to the 1750s.
Only a very small percentage of these images have ever been published. The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. We're digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time. Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire LIFE archive — about 10 million photos.
Only a very small percentage of these images have ever been published. The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. We're digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time. Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire LIFE archive — about 10 million photos.
That's right, we fully expect you may well lose the next several hours in a reverie of deeply fascinating photo-historicial procrastination. You will enjoy it, but our global economy may suffer as a result. You have been warned.
LINK:
Google's LIFE Photo Archive (Endless fun! Fully searchable!)
PREVIOUSLY:
Full-Color Time Travel, Courtesy of Your Library of Congress
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