[Genealib] Footnote.com

[Laura Carter]

Hi John,
  
Hope all is well down there in Columbus!

Footnote.com searching is user friendly and there is a wealth of 
information.  They will continue adding more federal records. Most of 
these are only available on microfilm at NARA facilities.  Footnote.com 
provides  access to folks so they do not have to drive to those 
facilities or a large research library that has that microfilm.  The 
record previews that I have used are helpful in that they do give people 
enough information to know whether the source will actually have 
information they can use.  

They are also adding newspapers and city directories - not as fast as I 
want, but they are adding and these are great tools for everyone.

Please remind your African American researchers that there is lots of 
information out there NOT LABELED African American.  If they limit 
themselves to resources only for African Americans, they will miss lots 
of incredibly valuable information.  I helped start a local African 
American interest group and they keep getting hung up on looking for 
things that are specifically African American - I keep dragging them 
back to other sources and they are surprised when they find information.

We subscribe on a per terminal basis with a flat fee per terminal per 
year.  I have written articles for the local genealogical society 
newsletter about Footnote.com and I promote its use via my email lists 
to remind people that they can register for FREE and search at home and 
then get the actual article by coming in to the Heritage Room.  There 
are a couple of people who periodically come in and spend several hours 
downloading images to their flash drives.  A number of people have told 
me that they have subscribed from home because it is so reasonably priced.

One of the incredibly rich sources in Footnote.com for African American 
research is the Southern Claims Commission.  St. Louis County Public 
Library has a great Website with the Julius K. Hunter & Friends 
Collection - a collection designed for African American research.  They 
have useful tools and a good guide as to how to research the Southern 
Claims Commission records at
http://www.slcl.org/branches/hq/sc/jkh/tools.htm.   Ruth Ann Hager is a 
genealogist on staff there that has spent a great deal of time really 
delving into the records, in case you ave questions.

I think it is well worth your money - try it and see if your users take 
advantage of it.

Laura

Lyles, John wrote:
>
> To all Libraries with subscriptions or thinking of subscribing to 
> Footnote.com..... My library is looking to purchase a subscription but 
> wanted a little feedback from user community. We had an interesting 
> conversation among staff here about the database and want to know  how 
> useful was the database?  One of our concerns was that we found very 
> little use in terms of African American genealogy. Anecdotal and 
> quantitative responses are welcomed.
>
>  
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> genealib mailing list
> genealib at mailman.acomp.usf.edu
> http://mailman.acomp.usf.edu/mailman/listinfo/genealib

-- 
Laura W. Carter
Heritage Room Librarian
Athens-Clarke County Library
2025 Baxter Street
Athens, Georgia 30606

Voice - 706 613-3650 Ext. 350
FAX -	706 613-3660

lcarter at arlsmail.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.acomp.usf.edu/pipermail/genealib/attachments/20080721/dff553a6/attachment.html