Matt Blessing to Direct WHS Library & Archives

The Wisconsin Historical Society has announced the appointment of Matt Blessing, head of special collections and archives at Marquette University in Milwaukee, as the director of the Society's Library-Archives Division. Blessing, who formerly worked as an archivist at the Society from 1991 to 1999, will begin his new duties on Jan. 17.

Blessing has worked as an archivist for Marquette since 1999, overseeing some of the university's most widely used collections, including the original manuscripts of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" as well as manuscript collections documenting Catholic social justice movements such as Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker Movement. Part of his role has been to digitize significant amounts of material in the university's archival collections for Internet access, something that is also a priority at the Society.
--Bob Granflaten, Wisconsin Historical Society

WLA 2007: UW-Madison Libraries/Google Partnership

UW-Madison Libraries/Google Partnership
a presentation by Ed Van Gemert, Deputy Director, General Library System, UW-Madison; and Irene Zimmerman, Head, Cataloging Department and Google Project Manager, UW-Madison
http://www.library.wisc.edu/digitization/.

• What is Google Book Search (GBS)? http://books.google.com/
  
• Wisconsin's involvement

GBS allows you to search the full text of books, if the item is pre-1923

The books in GBS come primarily from 2 sources:

1. publishers
2. libraries

Once you've searched GBS and found a book, you can...

• browse books online under full view, limited preview, or snippet view (if item is post-1923; in copyright)
• search within the book
• find similar titles
• buy the book or request it through interlibrary loan
• download public-domain books

digitization of books is achieved through non-destructive scanning

online items are not preservation quality; it's all about discovery & access to materials

Wisconsin's involvement:

• UW-Madison initiated discussions in early 2006
• established partnership with the Wisconsin Historical Society
• contract agreement negotiations from May-Oct 2006
• developed "Statement on Principles and Values"
• the agreement stipulates a university digital copy of each file, including items that are still in copyright
• primary focus areas: Federal government documents, state government documents, historic documents, patent info
• additional books from the genealogy collection from Wisconsin Historical Society, and theses & dissertations
  
• the first shipment of books was sent to Google 3 Apr 2007; materials from several libraries are shipped to Google every 4 weeks
  

Google paid for all the costs of preparation, shipping, and digitization

shared digital repository among CIC libraries (Michigan, Indiana, et. al.)

Project Planning: a project management team was appointed, based on advice from a Google liaison

Determined criteria for inclusion based on size, format, and condition of book

the book's temporary location in MadCat indicates it's checked out

Upcoming issue --how to get links to the digitized book into the book's bibliographic record in MadCat

the more of a book a publisher shows, the more copies of books it sells

WAPL 2007: Genealogical Resources for Library Support Staff

Genealogical Resources for Library Support Staff
a presentation by Lori Bessler, Microforms Librarian and Outreach Coordinator, Wisconsin Historical Society

The Wisconsin Historical Society's newspaper microfilm collection is 2nd in size only to that of the Library of Congress.

Area Research Center network:

• The Society's Area Research Center network holds original records from the area near to the ARC's location
• each of the ARC locations have web sites, accessible from http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/libraryarchives/arcnet/
• items can be couriered from one ARC to another for use by your patrons
  

Use the MadCat catalog to find items owned by the library at WHS.
Use the ArCat catalog to find items owned by the archives at WHS.

Other services offered by WHS:

• photocopying services
• research services
• www.wisconsinhistory.org web site provides lots & lots of resources, including access to over 20,000 images & photos

The WHS Research Portal points to databases such as...

• Wisconsin Name Index
• Wisconsin Historical Images
• Turning Points in Wisconsin History
• Civil War Roster of Volunteers
• Wisconsin Corporations Index

Tips for beginning genealogical research:

• start with yourself & go backwards
• talk to your living relatives & get an oral history
  
• cite sources thoroughly so you can find the information later
• photocopy everything, instead of transcribing what you find
  
• use pedigree charts & family group sheets
• find reviews of genealogical software at Cyndi's List
  

Genealogical resources:

• census
• vital records
• newspapers

other good web sites for genealogical research:

• Online Searchable Death Indexes & Records -- a directory of online death indexes listed by state and county
• Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness -- volunteers have agreed to do a free genealogy research task at least once per month in their local area
• FamilySearch
• RootsWeb
• The USGenWeb Project