Google has launched a new project to archive the world's newspaper headlines.

Most newspapers keep archives of past issues in vaults and on microfiche film rolls. However, putting them online remains an expensive and time-consuming task for many organisations.

Google hopes to overcome this hurdle by using its current print digitising tools to speed up the process of putting papers online.

In addition to several major literary collections, the company has previously worked with The New York Times and The Washington Post to put their back-catalogues online.

Initially, the project will focus on major news headlines. Eventually Google plans to have the newspaper content indexed alongside regular news content, allowing users to pull up archived articles alongside other Google news items.

"This effort is just the beginning," said Google product manager Pundit Soni.

"As we work with more and more publishers, we'll move closer towards our goal of making those billions of pages of newsprint from around the world searchable, discoverable and accessible online."