The news archives of the Albert Lea Tribune back to 1999 are now available at AlbertLeaTribune.com.

The newspaper debuted a new Web site last year, one with Web-based content management and built within the company. In other words, it gives the Tribune staff much more control over its operation. Prior to the switch, though, the electronic form of the back issues of the daily newspaper for the Albert Lea area had been in the possession of the site’s provider. It took several months to get the large amount of news archives prepared for the new site.

There is no charge to search the archives of the Tribune online.

“This is a community service we were looking forward to getting up and running,” said Tribune Publisher Scott Schmeltzer. “We are dedicated to being a leader for online content.”

Now, when people search, they can go back as far as 1999, which is the year the Tribune began its first site. Bylines simply will say “staff” for now, but eventually this bug will be corrected.

AlbertLeaTribune.com is the most visited site in the Albert Lea area. Also, the first site to appear on a Google search for “Albert Lea” is the newspaper’s site.

The Albert Lea Tribune also can be found at several other social networking spots on the Internet, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Local and long-distance readers already have signed on as fans at the Tribune’s Facebook spot.