Don't Forget to Look for Digital Books!

After receiving an email mentioning a 987 page (!) genealogy of one of my families, I was feeling sad that it's out of print.  Googling didn't find anything helpful, and WorldCat.org suggested helpfully that the nearest copy was in a library 187 miles away.  But...clicking on the Editions link in WorldCat brought up a list of 4 editions of the book, one of which was said to be digital.  And clicking on that brought up a link to the Hathi Trust website, where the entire book is digitized, searchable, and free for anyone.

Lesson: WorldCat.org is your friend.

And, if you're wondering, the book is The Basye Family in the United States, by Otto Basye, and the link is http://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89062852876

Oddly enough, while Google didn't find the digital version of the book, it did find a description of Otto's papers, which were donated to the State Historical Society of Missouri.  Apparently there are approximately 4 shelf-feet of materials, largely the research for the book.

Interested in Photo Archives? You Should Be Reading This

The Society of American Archivists has several subgroups that focus on archiving particular types of materials.  One of the these is the Visual Materials Section, which focuses on, well, visual materials like photographs and other images.  Their most recent newsletter, Views, has a few articles of no interest whatsoever to genealogists, relating mostly to academic conferencing, and several articles that are very interesting to anyone interested in visual materials.

First, a quote I liked: "...every two minutes, the same number of photographs are made in the world today as was made during the entire nineteenth century."  Stephen Fletcher, in a review of a symposium called Magnum Photos into the Digital Age.  Imagine!

Second, the newsletter has a listing of new books and exhibits on photography, photographers and photographs.  I wish Twentieth-Century Color Photographs: Identification and Care by Sylvie Penishon wasn't $65. (And why aren't academic publishers making ebooks?  Seems like scholars, of all people, would be sympathetic to making books cheaper and easier to store!)

And third and best of all, the newsletter includes a listing of new digital archive projects.  For example, The American Museum of Natural History Research Library Digital Special Collections has an image website that includes, among other things, "the Julian Dimock Collection which documents moments in the daily lives of African Americans in South Carolina, new immigrants at Ellis Island, and the Seminole
Indians of Florida at the turn of the last century; and the Lumholtz Collection which documents four expeditions led by ethnographer Carl S. Lumholtz to northwestern Mexico between 1890 and 1898,
with important portraits of the indigenous peoples of Mexico."  Check it out at http://images.library.amnh.org/digital/

Flip-Pal Correction

Last Friday, I posted about my experience with the Flip-Pal scanner.  Diana, from Flip-Pal, commented with a correction -- the screen keeps a count of pictures left to take, so alert users can tell when the card is almost full.

Obviously, I'm not an alert user.  Those tiny numbers on the screen are pretty subtle (and invisible if you've taken the lid off and turned the scanner over).  I need the screen to turn red and flash.  Or maybe a foghorn.  No, that would get me kicked out of libraries.  Perhaps they could add a more eye-catching warning in a future release.

And I will put a note in my case reminding myself to watch the counter.

Thanks, Diana.

Me and My (Flip) Pal

I jumped on the bandwagon and bought a Flip-Pal scanner before leaving on my research trip.  I used it several times, with mixed results.  My thoughts:

• It weighs practically nothing and was totally easy to throw in my research kit.
• It was great for the obituary cards at the Licking County Genealogy Society, which are 4x6.  Everyone in the room was impressed.
• It was not great for deed books at the courthouse.  Each page was taking 6 or 8 scans, which was just too long.  The digital camera was much better.
• It attracts a lot of attention!  Be prepared to give a couple of demos and have people watch you work.
• It eats batteries like candy.  Fortunately, it lets you know when the batteries are dying and they are easy to change.  Definitely get a recharging set.
• It also eats up your digital storage card.  Unfortunately, it does NOT let you know when it's full (or at least, not in a way that I noticed while I was at the library).  It will keep scanning, but not saving anything.  I lost about an hour's worth of work. You'll have to pay attention to this on your own, and get used to transferring files every night to clear up space for the next day.
• Like most scanners, it works best on flat things.  Scanning books works, but occasionally I ran into places where the frame of the scanner butted up against the binding of the book or photo album and I  couldn't quite get the whole page.   
• Almost all of my scans require editing, mostly to crop away the table top or extra album page, since the scans are all the same size, regardless of what you are scanning.  Easy to do, but plan for it if you're in a hurry.

I mentioned the Flip-Pal at a sewing retreat and learned that they are being marketed to machine embroiderers as well.  My friends were a bit peeved when they learned that I paid about half what the local sewing machine store is selling them for -- but now they know where to go for a better price!

Planning My Research Trip

Things I found helpful while planning (and conducting) my recent research trip:

Evernote: This is free-form (and free!) note-collecting software that syncs across all your mobile devices.  I put together a notebook with weblinks, snippets of text, and lists for all the stops I planned to make, including libraries, my hotels, courthouses, etc -- and they were all available on my phone, my iPad, and my laptop, even when I didn't have internet access.  I was also able to share it with my mom, giving her the info she would need if she needed to track me down (and my phone didn't work for some reason.) I find I'm using Evernote more and more as I learn more about it.

Google Maps: I made a custom map with pins for every library, cemetery, courthouse, hotel, restaurant, and symposium location I thought I might stop at.  It was very helpful for planning my days.  It would have been more helpful during my days if A) I had internet access everywhere and/or B) there was a way to sync it to my car's navigation system.

TMG: The genealogy software I use, The Master Genealogist, has the option to print lists of all the events that meet a given criteria, sorted however you like.  I made event lists for every event that took place in the counties I was visiting, sorted by city, which helped me figure out who to look for in probate indexes, deed books, and cemetery indexes.  I even had a couple of addresses of residences and businesses to check out in hopes of finding original houses, businesses or churches (I found a couple of possibles).

A plain spiral-bound notebook: I still find this the best way to take notes on the fly -- you can schlep it around a cemetery, use it to hold down grass while you take a picture, and use it as a plate for your afternoon M&M break.  Plus, you can use it anywhere, anytime, without worrying about power or dropping it (or sweating on it -- those cemeteries were hot!)

This article by Thomas MacEntee:  I didn't use all of his suggestions, but it was a good way to start focusing my thinking.