Scanning Dutch newspapers

The National library of The Netherlands is going to scan eight million newspaper pages. The project includes national, regional and colonial newspapers, some as old as 1618. The first results will be available on the internet in 2008, but the entire project will take years to complete (the announcement on their site does not contain an estimated end date). This will open up a major new resource for historical, but also for genealogical research. The newspapers are currently hard to access because they are not indexed. Newspapers are usually very fragile, which also hinders accessibility. A successful pilot, covering several newspapers in the period 1910-1945, is available at http://www.kb.nl/kranten/. You can find the official announcement at http://www.kb.nl/nieuws/2006/digitalisering_kranten.html. Both links are in Dutch.