The New York Times announced last night that its for-fee TimesSelect service is going bye-bye to be replaced with free access to the same content. Furthermore, parts of the New York Times archives will be freely available starting tomorrow.

The TimesSelect has some great content, but what I’m really excited about here are the archives. Freely-available archival content will include archives between 1851-1922, and content from 1922 to the present. Archival content from 1923-1986 will still be available for purchase in single or ten-article packs.

This is going to be a tremendous resource — such a large archive opening up for free! You can get a few more details at the New York Times itself. (I wonder why the NYT still has the TimesSelect free 14-day trial link at the top of its Web pages?)

While I was finding the link to that article I also discovered that eMusic is going to be offering audiobooks. What a great start to the day!