Genealogy and Local History Discussion Group
Jerusalem Meeting Agenda
13 August 2000

Theme: "Providing Access to Genealogy and Local History Information and Sources through International Cooperation and the Global Sharing of Resources"

Topics:

1. Implications and impact of the WWW on reference services and patron usage of genealogy and local history collections.

2. Comparison and assessment of WWW resources for genealogy and local history.

3. Integrating the Internet and WWW into library operations (correspondence, reference, collection development, acquisitions, etc.)

4. Defining "local history" and the scope of local history acquisitions.

5. Collecting, preserving, and accessing genealogy and local history materials through cooperative projects inside and outside the local community

GENLOC listserv.

Future of Genealogy and Local History Discussion Group and how it can best serve the international library community

Report.

Reporter: Ruth Hedegaard, Denmark

Ref. 1.

Discussion leader: Ryuichiro Takahashi, Japan

It was decided that the participants having knowledge of interesting websites should send information to the reporter, (see address below) and I will then make a list with a description of the sites and send it to the mailing list GenLoc.

The following is just a very brief overview of the discussion:

Ryuichiro Takahashi (Japan) told about the good genealogical and local history collections in Japanese universities libraries, but noted that few are connected to the Internet.

Ruth Hedegaard (Denmark) spoke about the new project in Denmark, DANPA (Denmark's National Private Archives Database), and the emigration lists from Denmark being computerized.

Andrew Green (Wales) talked about the use of the People's Network to connect UK libraries to the Internet for the purposes of training librarians and providing access to local materials of national importance.

Harriet Kaskow (Israel) noted that most important Israeli archives are on-line and the the catalog of the of the Jewish National and University Library has been automated.

Eva Kodric-Dacic (Slovenia) said that Slovenian archives and museums are far behind libraries in development; county libraries have strong local collections, national and local library collections are mainly used for local history and not so much for genealogy, and the catalogs and inventories of libraries and archives can be accessed by Internet.

Richard Turley (USA) told about Genealogical Society of Utah having the biggest website in the world with more than 700 million names and 6-8 million hits per day.

John Meriton (London) told about the 1901 British census soon being accessible on the Internet.

Ref 2-5.

Discussion leader: Peter Borchardt, Germany

Peter Borchard (Germany) said that his institutions was receiving increasing requests for genealogical resources from users from abroad. He told about about a web exhibition they have mounted using the children's book "Emil and the Detectives" by Eric Kästner, illustrated with facts about Berlin, and about a Christmas calender with information about Berlin.

John Meriton (London) told about the well-structured web site of the Public Records office which guides users to materials through a series of questions.

Yossi Harroch (Israel) spoke about the digitization of a list of acts of Jewish marriages from most of the countries where Jewish communites have settled, containing much genealogy of the families, and the Book of the Jewish community of Frankfurt, equally containing much genealogical material. This work is being done by the MANMOD Consortium that does cooperative acquisitions for university libraries.

Harriet Kasow (Israel) told about automation of the family tree of the Jewish people and two other projects which may go onto the Internet later: 1) Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum, has asked people from all over the world to send evidence of their family members being extermiated during the war. It has about 3 million pages of evidence together with pictures and other things that can be seen at the museum. And 2) The Diaspora Museum in Tel-Aviv, which is collecting material about Jewish families, has sent out questionnaires.

Ruth Hedegaard told about the local historical tradition in Denmark being very old and strong, having resulted in numerous local historical archives containing lots of genealogical and local historical material.

Ref. GENLOC listserv.

The listserv subscribers have now gone up to180. It is an uncensored and unmoderated list. There has not been that much traffic on the list, but that was taken as plus rather than a minus! No one wanted to cancel the list.The participants of this meeting were requested to sign up and to information their colleagues about the listserv, as are the readers of this report.

Ref. Future of Genealogy and Local History Discussion Group

The Discussion Group was first proposed in Copenhagen in 1997 as a special interest group within the Social Science Libraries Section,. It was organized at the IFLA meeting was held in Amsterdam in 1998. The first formal meeting was held during the IFLA meeting in Bangkok last year. As a discussion group there is no structure, no leaders, and no budget. It was proposed that the discussion group could become a Section in IFLA to be more visible and to have some sort of a budget.

Ending the meeting Mel Thatcher, Utah, referred to a very useful book: Thomas Jay Kemp: Virtual roots. A guide to genealogy and local history on the world wide web. Wilmington, Delaware, SR, Scholarly Resources Inc, 1997. 0-8420-2718-1 0-8420-2720-3.

This is the report of the meeting in Jerusalem.

I ask you, both participants and readers of this report, to send me references to genealogical and local historical resources on the Internet that you find will be of interest to your colleagues world wide.

Sincerely

Ruth Hedegaard