WHY SHOULD A GENEALOGY SOCIETY GIVE RECORDS AWAY?
by Jeffrey A. Bockman, M.B.A.
jeffb(a)anet-chi.com
http://www.anet-chi.com/~jeffb/index.html
Jeffrey Bockman is the president of the DuPage County (Illinois)
Genealogical Society.
This article was originally published in the FGS FORUM, Winter 1997,
page 25, and is reprinted here with the author's kind permission.
There is a vast amount of family history currently available on the
Internet and on CDROM that is incorrect, undocumented, or fictitious.
Yet, with the growing interest in family history many searchers will
stop with these easy-to-find "instant families." David E. Rencher stated
in "Where In Cyberspace Are We?" (FORUM 9:2 (Summer 1997) page 3), that
presently the Internet offers a search environment but "the field of
electronic genealogy . . . has yet to create a research environment.
Genealogy societies should be leading the way in creating a research
environment by providing information so that verifying an "instant
family" is as convenient as finding the family in the first place. But
how? One way in which societies can help to create a research
environment is to rethink traditional ways of distributing and sharing
the information that they compile. The traditional method of sharing is
to publish and the process is:
1. Compile information from vital records, cemeteries, ledger books,
and other sources, and enter into a word or data processing program;
then format and proofread.
2. Take the manuscript to a printer and have it published.
3. Store, advertise, and hopefully sell the resulting publication. A
closer look at this process shows while step 1 is critical in getting
the information in a form that can be shared with others, the
dissemination, steps 2 and 3, is open to question. Step 2 benefits a
printer/publisher while step 3 benefits a society -- but only if sales
are good and income exceeds expenses. This traditional procedure has
other flaws. First, distribution potential is limited. A user benefits
if he or she can find the publication, but it may only be available from
the society by mail or at local workshops. If it is advertised in
national genealogical publications, it competes with hundreds, perhaps
thousands of similar titles. Even library use is limited: users may find
the book only in a local, regional or national library which specializes
in genealogy. Thus, a researcher could spend more time and money trying
to locate the information than in actually using the information. The
market is limited, too. Few people want to purchase a publication to
look up only one or two events. They have other options. They can ask
the county clerk or the cemetery office to find one or two entries. Or,
they may write to the genealogical society who offers searches as a
courtesy or for a slight fee. A third drawback is the risk involved. The
society takes all of the risk. It has to determine print quantity based
upon printer volume costs, anticipated demand, and storage facilities.
The society must advertise and give free copies to some libraries or for
book reviews. Society volunteers must retrieve books from storage, haul,
unpack, and display them at conferences, then box and return unsold
books to storage. If publishing, storage and advertising costs, and the
wear and tear on volunteers exceed profits, the risk has been too great.
This traditional distribution channel, with its flaws, should cause
societies to reexamine their ultimate goal in compiling and distributing
information. If society goals are
(a) to preserve and make available genealogical information;
(b) to promote an interest in genealogy; and
(c) to encourage proper research techniques; there may be a better way
to achieve them.
The target audience for the dissemination of information in published
form is comprised of the society's members, people doing research in the
jurisdiction, and patrons of selected libraries. This is really a very
small audience. If a society seeks to share information with the widest
possible audience, why not share with everybody? The Internet is the new
communications frontier. Anyplace in the world is only nanoseconds away.
If every society and county government put its records online a
researcher who only needs information about a single event would be able
look it up from home or the local library with Internet access or at an
"Internet coffee shop." Ideally, if the person found the desired event
from a detailed online index, he could order a copy of the certified
record by entering credit card information or obtaining an invoice
number. . .
While many societies are beginning to discuss this issue they look at it
from a personal or society viewpoint rather than from a global
viewpoint. Instead, consider a wider range of benefits:
Government Agencies:
Time savings from not having to look in book indexes.
Faster access by using the electronic index.
Only activity would be with paid certificate requests.
Possibly less floor space needed for index storage and access.
Genealogical Society
No financial risk from over-printing.
No handling and storage, save time and costs.
Less income but less need to purchase other indexes.
Improved recognition and wider audience with home page link.
Requests for hard copy can be automated and printed on demand.
Global Audience
Faster, easier access to useful research without leaving home.
Eliminates need to review online library catalogs trying to find the
closest copy of a printed index.
Information could be annotated to show corrections and source.
Members
Attend sessions and socialize rather than sitting in a hallway selling
books.
Reduce wait for replies and save the cost of SASEs.
Achieve immediate action and results on new clues or ideas.
Could actually spend time doing research on their own family.
If one of the purposes of a genealogical society is to help make
information readily available then what better method is there?
Societies are nonprofit organizations. What money they do realize from
publication sales often goes to purchase other publications for the use
of members. But there are other options. Money can be earned through
workshop, class, or lecture fees. Profits can be used to disseminate
information more widely: by providing additional Internet resources,
Internet access at the local library or society library or office, or
supporting the storage and access cost of the county GenWeb site, a
society home page, or online vital record storage.
Once a society is convinced of the benefits of this new and more
Effective way of disseminating information, it can start small and work
up to more ambitious projects:
1. Provide the following information on-line:
Places to do research, hours and holdings.
Handy guide to the type of historical information that is available.
Access instructions to vital records or the indexes.
Queries.
2. Compile indexes and make them easily available.
3. Assist counties and repositories in getting images of the actual
records online with easy search and retrieval systems. If everyone
would "do for others as you would like them to do for you," we could all
make electronic genealogy work for us. We could be making verification
of information now available in Internet's search environment quick and
easy. We could be establishing research environments to complement and
enhance the existing search environment, and we could be turning
searchers into researchers.