Google's take over of PaperOfRecord.com

The Ottawa Citizen carries an article by business writer Bert Hill Google expected to take over Ottawa data firm.

It includes the information from PaperOfRecord CEO Bob Huggins, confirming a rumour that was circulating, that late in 2003 the company was close to selling its newspaper database to Library and Archives Canada for $1.2M. The deal fell apart and the sale to Google is for "much less than $3M."

It remains unclear from the article as to the terms under which the papers will be available to history and genealogy researchers going forward.

This would make an interesting case study for one of the local university business schools.