Google announced that they’re now hosting around 10 million photos from the LIFE photo archives on Google Image search. 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 (2008) 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.
Once you are in the archive, you’ll also notice that you can access a rich full-size, full-screen version of each image simply by clicking on the picture itself in the landing page. If you decide you really like one of these images, high-quality framed prints can be purchased from LIFE at the click of a button. Think of the holiday gift possibilities! It doesn’t get much easier than that.
You can search the photos directly from the LIFE photo archive start page or simply include with any Google Image search query.
