Friday, November 27, 2009

Changes Coming for the Genealogy Center

In the next few months you are going to see some big changes in the Genealogy Center of the Largo Public Library. These changes are driven in part by the need for more shelf space to accommodate our expanding collection.

The family history section of books (those with the 929.2 call numbers), are going to be moved to the opposite end of the Genealogy Center--in the area of the microfilm cabinets. And room will be made for them there by moving out the US Census microfilm. That resource has been eclipsed by Internet access to the same images on sites such as Ancestry, Heritage Quest, and Family Search, to name just a few. The online indexing and image availability has rendered the old microfilm collection obsolete and virtually never used anymore.

When the family history collection is moved, there will be more room for it in its new location, as well as more room for the state sections of the collection to expand also.

Executing this plan is going to make things a bit unsettled for a while, but in the long run it will serve to improve the value of the collection to researchers.

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