Google News

Google News is a computer-generated news site designed to change the way readers select stories. Usually, an individual selects a publication before browsing headlines for a story to read, but Google News gives readers the ability to select a topic rather than a publication by aggregating headlines from more than 4,500 English-language news sources and grouping similar stories together. Google News also enables users to set up a page that delivers personalized news and alerts based on their interests.

From Google News: 

You can personalize Google News to focus on what you want. This feature includes Personalized Search, which tailors your Google searches based on your web history

and more.

• Personalize your page. Create and rearrange custom sections for the Google News front page.
• Keep track of the news stories you've read. Use Personalized Search to view and manage your history of past searches and news articles you've clicked on. (You can turn off Personalized Search or remove items from your Web History at any time.)
• See news recommended just for you. Get news headlines and search results recommended specifically for you, based on what you've searched for and clicked on. 

• Access your Google News from any computer. Your personalized Google News is part of your Google Account so you can access it from anywhere by signing in.

Once you have searched your topic, you can limit or expand your search by timeframe (last hour, etc.) for breaking new or by year. Links in the sidebar connect to other Google services related to News Search. You can set up a Google Alert (one of the choices in this Thing) or do a Blog Search on your topic.

Google News offers some other features that can make keeping current easier. 

• The front page of Google News is a newspaper front page that aggregates news in one spot
• Personalize your Google News by entering your zip code
• News will add stories based on  your search history (see Web Search in this Thing)
• Drag and drop the News boxes to put your interests on top

Read more here: 

http://news.google.com/intl/en_us/about_google_news.html

For historic news search the News Archive. Google offers some news back to the 1800s. The Archive timeline gives a visual of the quantity of stories on your topic by decade. 

Google recommends the Stroll through History gadget. This feature puts a box on your iGoogle page or blog that explains a different historic event each day.

Activities

Explore Google News and the various features.

Explore the archives search and the timeline feature.

Personalize a News page.

Blog about your experience, thoughts.

Like Google News

Sounds a lot like ProQuest you're thinking? You probably saw this LJ announcement about Google's agreement with ProQuest. It will be interesting to follow this development--how will ProQuest continue to develop its databases and how much will be available via Google News? In the meantime, ProQuest Newstand Complete and Regional Business News in ELM have much deeper coverage and a broader range of local, national, and international newspapers. Proquest has similar features to Google News--you can set up an alert or RSS feed on topics. The ProQuest advantage--fulltext of many more newspapers is available.

Other ELM databases from Ebsco and Gale also offer search alert/journal alert via RSS or email, too, so if  you want news/updates from library-specific or other non-newspaper sources, explore those.