The negative reviews concerned me but I recently located to important articles from Newspapers.com through Google. Using a gift card I purchased a monthly subscription (auto renewed each month). Navigation and searching is well designed and the library of papers is impressive. But I was disappointed that a number of my local papers are missing. So far I'm having fun and may hang on for a renewal. Cancelling is a click away but my gift card will protect me if that becomes an issue. My advice is to register for free and begin searching. You will not be able to read the articles but if it appears that Newspapers.com has what you need then it may be worth the $20 for a single month to harvest the data.