Searching handwritten manuscripts and Google

Earlier this month, I had reported on a new way to search handwritten manuscripts that was developed by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Today, the New York Times has written about this exciting development, along with the fact that the head of the project is going to brief Google on it next month. So many handwritten texts have been scanned and placed on the Web with no way to search them. This is a tremendous tool for researchers, and Google is smart to see the value in it (in light of what it’s been up to lately).