The following is a quote from the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Journal-Gazette:
Deep in the catacombs of the Allen County Library, in a darkened room, 10 black-cloaked “scribes” quietly pore over yellowed texts:
- “The History of Natrona County, Wyoming, 1888-1922.”
- “Cornwall Parish Registers, Marriages, 1853-1913.”
- “Fort Wayne, Indiana, City Directory, 1864-1865.”
But these scribes aren’t people – they’re state-of-the-art scanning machines from non-profit Internet Archive, the library basement’s out-of-sight secret. The basement lab will play a vital role in digitizing the former Lincoln Museum collection for public access.
Though housed in the library, Internet Archive is an independent operation, part of a national network of scanning centers that put rare books and documents on the Internet for public consumption.
The article goes on for some length describing this worthwhile project. Because of the efforts of both the Internet Archive and of the Allen County Public Library, these valuable works will soon be available to genealogists and others from the convenience of home. There will be no need to travel to Fort Wayne to see them.
You can read the entire article at http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081226/LOCAL/812260323.
I always appreciate the Allen County Public Library's (ACPL) Genealogy Center getting a mention in my friend, Dick Eastman's online newsletter. The reach of his newsletter is extraordinary as is its content. Thanks, Dick!
To be sure, the ACPL is extremely pleased to be among the Indiana organizations receiving the Lincoln Museum collection. We strongly believe the virtual presence we will build for the Lincoln collection will far out-pace the walk-in traffic the museum historically received. And that's a very good thing! Further, we believe our success with other collaborations demonstrated our commitment to big projects with significant impact.
For more than a year ACPL's Genealogy Center has been increasingly involved in digitization collaborations.
**We are partnering with FamilySearch in helping build the Family History Archive with other major libraries around the country. We've contributed over two thousand volumes to that project to date. These digitized works are fully searchable and downloadable for free. And we're just getting started.
**Our collaboration with Internet Archive has already placed more than four thousand public domain family and local histories on their website for free use and downloading. We see a bright future for that collaboration as well.
**We have the honor of working with two extremely talented individuals, Dallan and Solveig Quass, in helping present and grow the WeRelate website --the largest genealogy wiki on the web with pages for more than two million people and families. It's a great place to post data, search a large database of genealogy related web sites, and make connections with others searching the same families. Exciting new enhancements are constantly being made. And it's all free.
**We are working with Footnote in providing data to their interesting website--and their new approach to presenting history and to help people interested in history (as they say on their site) "Discover. Discuss. Connect. Share."
**We also continue a fantastic relationship with our friends at ProQuestCSA in expanding the "Periodical Source Index" as an important component of the HeritageQuestOnline suite of database offerings.
The Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne engages in these collaborations to increase synergy in the genealogical community and to amplify excitement among non-traditional researchers about engaging in family history pursuits by providing online access to more historical records. I am always a bit sensitive, then, about stark statements (like the Journal Gazette's) associated with these collaborations such as "There will be no need to travel to Fort Wayne..." Of course there's not a "need" to travel to Fort Wayne--there's hardly a "need" to travel anywhere! However, it's my strongest aspiration, and indeed my belief, that many will continue to *want* to travel to Fort Wayne. They will *want* to travel to Fort Wayne because doing family history is so much more than just books, real or virtual. It's learning from workshops, lectures, seminars, and brown-bag lunch sessions; it is being able to work one-on-one with trained information professionals who are committed to helping you be successful with your research challenges; it is being able to access the two thirds of our nearly one million item collection not available online because of copyright and other restrictions; and it's being able to learn from fellow researchers in casual conversations across research tables, sharing challenges and successes.
Besides offering some of the best genealogical consultations one will find anywhere, the Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne is hosting two major conferences in 2009 while offering a genealogy program each month except in October when we will be offering a genealogy program each day. The Palatines to America German Speaking Ancestry Conference will be in Fort Wayne June 18-20, 2009 and the International Black Genealogy Summit: Reconnecting Lost Links will be here October 29-31, 2009. You might just *want* to check us out!
Posted by: Curt Witcher | December 30, 2008 at 02:48 PM