Google is digitizing microfilm from old newspapers and bringing it online to you -- free. It's springing for the cost to put the old film online, opening up vast amounts of local American history that had been sequestered in dingy library offices, too difficult for most researchers to find.

Here's how it works: Go to Google's News Archive site. Type in whatever you're curious about: Your name. Your hometown. Your address. Some historical event. Whatever you like. After you hit search, you'll see a list of dates on the left. Take one of those, or hit "other dates" and you can search within a date range.

For newspapers like the New York Times, you'll find an excerpt and, depending on the date, you may get to see the whole thing for free or may be asked to pay. Here's a story from 1875 on a theater riot in my neighborhood. Google sends me to the New York Times site, where I see an abstract, then I click on a link and get the PDF.

The Times seems to be more generous than a lot of newspapers. If I want to see a 1934 article from the Washington Post on Cary Grant's divorce, it'll cost me $4. I get an excerpt about the "English beauty" charging "extreme cruelty" for free.

Seems so old fashioned, clipping coupons. Sitting at the kitchen table with your coffee and little pair of scissors. Something your Aunt Tish was famous for. If it seems musty, and not something people do so much anymore, you're in good company. Coupon redemption has been falling for the last decade. Until recently, that is. And with an online twist, of course.

According to this report in the New York Times, the number of visits to thrift-oriented websites that feature coupons are up by about a third in the last year. And sites like Coupons.com and Couponwinner.com are reporting spikes in traffic.

Why is this? Leaping food prices and $4 gasoline for starters. According to the article, the founder of Coupons.com, Steven Boal, says traffic has grown steadily in recent years, but spiked upward last fall as consumers got "more aggressive" in their finding and printing out coupons, especially for everyday products like milk and cereal.

The headline could read, "Move over Supermom: The tale of the übermom." Or maybe, "Super (simple) Mom is new maternal 'It' Girl." In today's New York Times, the profile of Shannon Hayes is full of generosity, nuance, and flaw; she's a representative of the mother who chooses to trade a power suit for cast-off jeans, to home school her children, to eschew plastics, to recycle and compost everything, to live more simply. She's also a representative of the women who can't do it all (her fridge isn't sparkling, she doesn't fold her clean laundry).

All that aside, her lifestyle is appealing to those who would Live More Simply. She raises her own food and her family barters its chickens for handmade pottery. She and her husband don't work conventional jobs, choosing instead to spend plenty of time with their two young daughters and evangelizing the sustainable lifestyle; to butcher and sell their fancy organic lamb.

When I see an article like this, the question that always springs to my mind is, could I do this? And, hand-in-hand, how much does it cost?