Books On Line By: "Carolyn Rodosta" Subject: Books Online at BYU
The LDS Family History Library has announced that it has begun the process of
digitizing and making available on the Internet all of the Family History books
in their collection. These are primarily books in the "929.273Series" that are
currently housed on the first floor of the Family History Library (previously
housed on the fourth floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building). At the present
time (September 2005), about 5000 books have been digitized and are available, and
they have announced that they are adding about 100 titles a week to the on-line
collection. Copyright issues are playing a role in determining the order in which
they progress through this task; books out of copyright are being done first.
As these Family History books are digitized and placed on-line, an entry is being
placed in the Family History Library on-line catalog with a hyperlink to the digitized
image. By going to the FHL On-Line Catalog, you can search for a specific name, find a
book that has been indexed using the name, and view it on-line, flipping through the
pages as separate "pdf" images, much the same as if you were on the first floor of the
Family History Library. Of course, the indexing that is available through the FHL
Catalog is only as good as the human indexers made it; typically they only include
the "top" 4 to 6 names that appear in each book in their indexing efforts. But there
is even better news!
The digitized images of these Family History books are actually being stored on
the electronic servers at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. By going directly
to the BYU web site to view the images, there are several additional possibilities
that provide genealogists functionality that they have never had before. You are now
able to do full-text searches on each book, and on every digitized book in the
collection. Now you can locate the small two-paragraph entry on Grandpa Ebnezer
McGarrah that is buried in one of the Family History books that you would have
otherwise never thought to look at before. This can open up a huge new possibility
for extending lines, getting past brick walls, and uncovering new relatives!
How to Find The Digitized Images? One interesting sidelight is, when you are at the first web page for the Family
History Archive (the page that lets you begin a search), click on the "Browse the
Collection" button. This will display every Family History book that has been
digitized and is available in the collection. You can scroll through this list
much the same as if you were walking up and down the stacks at the library. At
the top of the first page of the search results, it displays the number of hits,
which (in this case) is the number of books in the collection. If you keep track
of this number, you can get a pretty good idea of how fast they are adding titles
to the collection as you revisit the web site from time to time. I think you will
want to visit this site often as the collection grows!"
Please place in the Subject Line: BOOK REVIEW 
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