Friday, December 2, 2016

Library of Congress, Digital Public Library of America To Form New Collaboration

Library of Congress, Digital Public Library of America To Form New Collaboration

This undoubtedly will affect many genealogists as more and more records are added to the Digital Public Library’s database of digital content records. Making such records available online results in much easier access for all than the present methods. The following announcement was written by the Library of Congress:
library_of_congress_logoThe Library of Congress today signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Digital Public Library of America to become a “content hub partner” and will ultimately share a significant portion of its rich digital resources with DPLA’s database of digital content records.
The first batch of records will include 5,000 items from three major Library of Congress maps collections—the Revolutionary War (loc.gov/collections/american-revolutionary-war-maps/about-this-collection/), Civil War (loc.gov/collections/civil-war-maps/about-this-collection/) and panoramic maps collections (loc.gov/collections/panoramic-maps/about-this-collection/).
“We are pleased to make the Digital Public Library of America a new door through which the public can access the digital riches of the Library of Congress,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “We will be sharing some beautiful, one-of-a-kind historic maps that I think people will really love. They are available online and I hope even more people discover them through DPLA.”
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to collaborate closely with the Library of Congress, to work with them on the important mission of maximizing access to our nation’s shared cultural heritage,” said DPLA’s Executive Director Dan Cohen, “and we deeply appreciate not only the Library’s incredible collections, but also the great efforts of the Librarian and her staff.”
The Digital Public Library of America is a portal—effectively, a searchable catalog—that aggregates existing digitized content from major sources such as libraries, archives, museums and cultural institutions. It provides users with links back to the original content-provider site where the material can be viewed, read or, in some cases, downloaded.
The Digital Public Library of America, the product of a widely shared vision of a national digital library dating back to the 1990s, was launched with a planning process bringing together 40 leaders from libraries, foundations, academia and technology projects in October, 2010 followed by an intense community planning effort that culminated in 2013. Its aim was to supersede the silo effect many digitization efforts were subject to. Based in Boston, the board of directors includes leading public and research librarians, technologists, intellectual property scholars, and business experts from across the nation. Its goal is to create “an open, distributed network of comprehensive online resources that would draw on the nation’s living heritage from libraries, universities, archives, and museums in order to educate, inform, and empower everyone in current and future ­generations.”
The Library of Congress expects to add a significant portion of its digital items to the original trio of collections over time, covering other collections such as photos, maps and sheet music.
Library of Congress items already appear in the DPLA database. Earlier in this decade, the Library digitized more than 100,000 books in its collections as part of its membership in the Hathi Trust and the Biodiversity Heritage Library, both current partners with the DPLA. As a result, those books are already in the DPLA’s collections through those partners.
The Digital Public Library of America strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. Since launching in April 2013, it has aggregated more than 14 million items from more than 2,000 institutions. The DPLA is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit.
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States—and extensive materials from around the world—both on site and online. The Library is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov, access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov, and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.
My thanks to newsletter reader Ernie Thode for telling me about this announcement.


Saturday, October 22, 2016

Find A Grave vs Billion Graves--Comments on Find A Grave Suggested Improvements

How FindAGrave Could – and Should – Be Made Better 

[Click on the 21 Comments link below to view some valuable responses on Find A Grave vs Billion Graves. Having used Billion Graves, to search, to document grave sites and to transcribe, I have found issues with both Apps but they both have their plusses and negatives.  I think both could be used in one cemetery]

Amy Johnson Crow has posted an article in her blog that illustrates one of the problems with FindAGrave and offers suggestions for how it could be better. If you have an interest in FindAGrave, you might want to read Amy’s article, How FindAGrave Could – and Should – Be Made Better, at: http://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/2016/10/21/findagrave-made-better/.

Comment: FindAGrave’s biggest competitor, BillionGraves.com, certainly is not perfect. It has some problems of its own but does not share the problems that Amy wrote about. For one thing, BillionGraves.com starts with a picture of the tombstone. No picture? No entry on BillionGraves.com.

Perhaps FindAGrave should adopt a similar policy.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Why You Might Want a Personal Genealogy Blog

Why You Might Want a Personal Genealogy Blog on WordPress 

Click here for more of the article below

blog

You probably can find dozens of reasons for creating a blog. In addition, you can probably find dozens of companies that will host a blog for you. Given the choices and the reasons available, trying to decide on the best blog hosting service for you can be an overwhelming decision. How do you find the best one for your use? I will suggest there is no easy answer, but I will suggest that WordPress should be one of the services you evaluate.

NOTE: I will quickly admit that I am biased. The words you are reading right now are hosted on a WordPress blog. I have used several different blogging services over the years to host this newsletter. I switched to WordPress several years ago and am very happy with the company’s services. I have no plans to switch to anything else.

Why would you want a blog?

There are a number of reasons why a genealogist might want to crate a blog. Here are a few ideas I can think of:

Keep track of your own family history research and advise your relatives of your progress. If your relatives are monitoring your progress, it is possible they can contribute information to your research efforts, especially as they read about various items you discover. Reading about their ancestors’ lives often serves as a “memory jogger” for various bits of information they may have heard or known about years ago. Many of such bits may be new to you. In some cases, a blog reader who lives near the locations where your ancestors lived also may be able to perform some “in person” research for you.

Share your own life experiences. A blog can be similar to an online diary. Such a blog can be very interesting to your friends and relatives. Optionally, you can add a password to your blog so that it can only be read by the people to whom you grant access.

Genealogical and historical societies often use blogs to publish society newsletters online, to publicize upcoming events, to publicize books the society publishes, and to publicize all sorts of news and events of potential interest to society members and non-members alike. Some societies even add a “for members only” section that requires a password to access. A society blog often is one of the most powerful publicity tools a society can use.

Ethnicity interest groups often use blogs focused on specific ethnic groups and the genealogies of included families. Examples include Polish-American groups, African-American genealogy, Jewish genealogy, Hispanic genealogy, French-Canadian genealogy, Irish genealogy, German genealogy and more.

Almost all genealogy conferences now use blogs to publicize events, to distribute updates on speakers and presentations to be offered, to supply information about hotels and restaurants in the area, and myriad other reasons.

Archives and libraries often use blogs to provide news about recent additions to their collections, seminars, and other events being held by the archive or library, lists of holidays and other times the library or archive may be closed, solicitations for donations, and more.

Genealogy industry blogs are very popular. Almost every company in the genealogy business publishes a blog containing frequent updates about the latest additions and updates to the company’s offerings, publicity about future additions and changes, disseminating FAQs (Frequently-Asked Questions) that many customers ask, and many other customer support activities. Nearly 40% of US companies use blogs for marketing purposes. Two-thirds of marketers say their company blog is “critical” or “important” to their business.
Genealogy industry news: perhaps you want to compete with Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter. (Comment: Come on in! There’s room for more.)

A blog makes it easy to reach a sizable audience on the World Wide Web. Most people read blogs more than once/day. In a recent survey, 90% of the respondents said they read 5 to 10 blogs frequently. Among those respondents, 23 % of their Internet time is spent on blogs and social networks. See 10 Interesting Key Facts and Figures about Blogging, Bloggers should know at http://goo.gl/d0EHiA for details.