[Genealib] Making family history relevant to our customers

[Kenneth Aitken]

Kia ora, Karen
An ambitious topic for sure. Personally I think relevant familyy history
service in a public library needs to be a balance of relevant collections
targeted to  local needs-beyond a couple of circulating titles;both ready
reference and in-depth reference by staff who comrehend the genealogy
research process and where to refer people to; and programmes for the public
on both research strategy, and research sources including geographic
reference tools, in library and online, and the same for relevant online
access to catalogues and resourxces in libraries and archives. It is
important for  librarians o understand the pakeha population, and the
islandr population are recent immigrants and will quickly need info on
resources in Rarotonga, or Englabnd or the Netherlands etc.


I have used the concepts of the genealogical research process found in some
LDS Family History Library publications to develop some reference interview
questions.

   1. Who are you interested in researching?
   2. What do you know about her now?
   3. What one specific thing do you want to learn?
   4. Which type of record would best answer this? and where is it
   located? ( can we identify it specifically enough for you to access at the
   library? or identify it at some other institution or borrow through
   interinstitutional loan)

Many library workers panic when they here the word genealogy and quiit the
ref interview. Many questions are as you know geographical or
directory/index type questions the can handle!

Of couse you could do an hour each on collections, reference and programming

But thats next onference!

Kia Ngawari
Ken


-- 
Kenneth G. Aitken, MLS
Family History Education Services
Penticton, BC, Canada
kgaitken at gmail.com

Check out my blog!   www.genealogy-education.com
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