The New York Times digitises millions of historical photos

“We’ve always known that we were sitting on a trove of historical photos and now, cloud technology allows us to not only preserve this archival source, but easily search and pull photos to provide even more historical context,” said Monica Drake, assistant managing editor, The New York Times. “Ultimately, this digitalization will equip Times journalists with useful tools to make it easier to tell even more visual stories.”

“Google Cloud technologies like Cloud Storage, Cloud Pub/Sub, and Cloud Vision API are helping to preserve this priceless history and give journalists a new way to search, access, and analyze millions of historic photos and give them new life,” said Brian Stevens, chief technology officer, Google Cloud. “Cloud technology is allowing The Times to protect one of their most unique assets migrating from steel filing cabinets to a cloud-based platform where journalists can bring visual storytelling to a whole new level.”

The newsroom will use the digitized archives to inspire stories for Past Tense, a body of coverage dedicated to revisiting history. The first package from The Times newsroom to utilize the digitized archives will focus on how The Times covered California in the 20th century, examining how California’s free-spiritedness and culture of recreation and innovation appeared to Times journalists 3,000 miles away. With an introductory essay by the acclaimed novelist Walter Mosley, the editorial initiative will look at tech innovation, the birth of two American sports -- surfing and skateboarding -- the world of celebrity coverage and more.