We recently analysed a dataset from an 1859 geomagnetic observatory in Rome [1]. We found the document (the observatory yearbook written in 1859) via Google Bo

We recently analysed a dataset from an 1859 geomagnetic observatory in Rome [1]. We found the document (the observatory yearbook written in 1859) via Google Books. As I don't speak Italian, I initially typed out passages into Google Translate in order to find the information I needed. Google Books has a view text option, but the format of the page and font often made it garbled (when pushed through translate in any case). Decent OCR likely would have made my life a lot easier. There is a recent trend in space weather research to study extreme geomagnetic storms that happened in the 19th and early 20th century, and is aided partly by all of the scanned documents from that era available on the likes of Google Books, The Internet Archive and HaithiTrust. Better OCR would be a great help. Although even having access to all of the documents is already incredible! [1] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019JA027336 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/201...