Another weekend is here and it’s time for Randy Seaver’s weekly challenge on Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.
Here is his challenge:
1) Do you have a digital genealogy library? If so, what titles are in it. If not, why not?
Yes, I do have a digital genealogy library in two places, but they are very different collections.
The quick answer is that the books on my Kindle are “for fun” genealogy-related books to read when we travel. For example, Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s books are housed there.
However, my main, mostly reference, collection in my Genealogy Library folder on my desktop computer.
Rather than using sub-folders, the titles are in ABC order.
To be found are:
- Handouts from webinars and conferences which I’ve saved. Some are old enough that they are papers that have been scanned.
- Books that I didn’t want to give up entirely but which I rarely used anymore. I found a company quite a few years ago that would PDF entire books and would email me the files. The downside was that the bindings on the book were destroyed because the pages were fed through a rapid scanner. I also was advised that because the books were mostly copyrighted that they could make a file for me because it was replacing a book that I personally owned but it was up to me not to share the file because of those copyrighted restrictions. This company, 1DollarScan, is still in business, although I don’t know what kind of restrictions they have today and the cost now varies. I paid very little. From the file dates, it looks like this project happened in the summer of 2014.
- Reference books like county histories and family genealogies that are long out of copyright.
- Miscellaneous reference items like reading foreign alphabets, using maps, and college theses and dissertations.
My digital library isn’t huge and, yes, I do go back looking for these items, depending on the type of research I’m currently doing.
If you don’t have a digital library, but find yourself going back to the same books, which are out of copyright and downloadable on sites like FamilySearch and Internet Archive, I’d highly recommending and saving them.
Remember, like vital records and other documents that might be found online, seeing them today doesn’t necessarily mean they will be accessible tomorrow.
Thanks, Randy, for this week’s challenge.
Good advice about saving the books if one goes to them over and over..
I have not thought in terms of “digital genealogy library,” but I do have some items in digital form. Mostly, I have print books. I’m an old 20th century curmudgeon, a throwback. I’m also a former librarian from the 1970s, so I prefer print books when I can get them. I don’t always want to be stuck in front of my computer. I like to curl up on the couch with our cat and a cup of coffee, and read real books, with a legal pad and pen if I want to make notes.