Virtual Bookshelves for Genealogy

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Collections in LibraryThing

A lively discussion on #ANZAncestryTime about genealogy books prompted me to revisit a 2018 post Once upon a shelf wherein I discussed the use of LibraryThing and its associated OPAC TinyCat for listing both personal and institutional collections of books. Tim Spalding, the founder and LT guru, just mentioned this feature again on Twitter.

Secret: Every @LibraryThing account comes with a separate, "traditional" library catalog or "OPAC." It's better than most OPACs, and free for all personal use, very cheap for small libraries, schools and so forth. https://t.co/k7ZKhs6gie pic.twitter.com/3brBWcISZM

— Tim Spalding (@librarythingtim) February 2, 2021

In the last 12 months my local genealogy group, Cooroy-Noosa Genealogical & Historical Research Group, approved the move to to this online catalogue and one can now search the collection through the TinyCat OPAC. or view the traditional LibraryThing entries. Some other Australian groups I have found using LibraryThing include:

• Cairns & District Family History Society
• The Pioneers Association of South Australia
• Narre Warren & District Family History Group
• West Gippsland Genealogical Society
• Tamborine Mountain Family History Group

My own genealogy books and genealogy based fiction titles I have enjoyed, feature as links on my TinyCat page. If I have them stored in Evernote they have a tag to indicate that. I have very few paper books as I find membership at a range of libraries provides me with access to a wide range of both paper and ebooks. But what does one do with purchased or free ebooks once downloaded? 

Calibre

Calibre is a free, open source cross platform program for storing ebooks that come in a variety of formats. This is always my first port of call and books stored here can be read on the computer in a wide range of formats or transferred to other devices. There is a built in function for converting books to alternative formats, e.g. PDF to ePub is one of the many conversions available.

Calibre Companion app for both iOS and Android enables the transfer of ebooks to your device where they can be read with your preferred ebook reader.

Evernote 

When I wrote about Evernote in 2016 the basic version allowed one to sync notes across several devices so I put it on my Android phone, my iPad, and laptop as well as being able to log in to a web version.

The basic version of Evernote is still free but time moves on and now one needs pay $A89.99 per year to use Evernote on more than 2 devices. I am currently reviewing the frequency of my Evernote usage on various devices.

Evernote for storage of ebooks 

Evernote has an excellent search function which retrieves tags or titles of notes or words within notes.

3 methods of getting files into Evernote

• PDF ebook files can be sent to Evernote via one's own Evernote email address. 
• PDFs open on the web can be saved to Evernote via the web clipper extension available for most browsers 
• Files on computer - Start a new note then drag and drop the file into the note

Any other formats will need an additional app to open them but PDFs can be opened and searched within Evernote. 

Either allocate each book a tag of 'book' or place them in a single dedicated notebook, depending on your preferred method of working within Evernote. 

I have allocated a tag book so they are all easily retrieved.

Each book is stored within an individual note.

Each note has an individual address within Evernote so it is simple to create a separate Index note to list all the books stored within Evernote. 

• Create a new note, name Index Genealogy Books
• Go to the note where an individual book is stored
• On Desktop version choose Share and under More Sharing - Copy Internal link 

Desktop sharing options

• On mobile version go to share note and under More sharing options or the three dot (hamburger) menu choose - Copy internal link
• Paste the link just copied into  Index Genealogy Books note
• repeat for all the other books to generate a simple clickable list for quick access to any one title

Sample from my Index of Genealogy titles in Evernote

A brief list of free sources I find useful for family history and genealogy related titles

1. Local Library collection -  242 titles listed under genealogy Search by Family History, filter with topic History, sort by date latest, first or newest. 

2. NLA via Trove Digital Library, many historic digitised titles now available e.g. A Genealogical History of the Pioneer Families of Australia 

3. Internet archive - texts e.g. search genealogy or history, narrow by location - Free login to borrow or download depending on title.

4. BorrowBox for general limited time ebook borrowing- via local library Browse by category - History, many Australian titles

5. Google Books - Use drop down menu to choose Free e.g. Australian history then download as PDF or ePub

No matter the source of the book, I try to remember list it in LibraryThing with an appropriate tag so that I know whether I own it, whether it is an ebook or paper copy, where it is stored or whether I have just read it. 

How do you keep track of your family history/genealogy related titles and do you distinguish between those you own and those you have just read?

This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info

Click on the Cat

This post describes the migration of an Access database to LibraryThing to make resources easy to search via the web platform TinyCat. I have written previously “Once upon a shelf” about the usefulness of this system for small libraries or personal collections.

TinyCat by LibraryThing provides an inexpensive web platform for small libraries. My local genealogical society has an Access database of resources. While this is useful, it is not web accessible and library solutions of web hosted databases are beyond the financial reach of our small volunteer organisation. To this end I have been uploading  our resources to LibraryThing to make them easy to search. LibraryThing  has a universal import function that accepts a wide range of file formats.
The process involved several steps but is simple enough for anyone with basic computer skills.

1. Export local records from Access (any database)  to Excel (any spreadsheet) – skip this step if your records are already in a spreadsheet!
2. Download the sample csv from LibraryThing
3. Delete any fields not needed in the sample csv – we did not need Rating, Review or Date read as none of those were part of our database.
4. Reorder the data columns to match the sample csv columns
5. Insert the header row from the sample csv – the 7 fields used  - 'TITLE' | 'AUTHOR (last, first)' | 'DATE' | 'ISBN' | 'PUBLICATION INFO' | 'TAGS' | 'CALL NUMBER'
6. Save the file as a csv with a meaningful title –  I chose to upload limited sections of data  progressively e.g. 200 records at a time.
7. Upload at Import records.  The upload scans the file for valid ISBNs then identifies those records that have no ISBNs and asks for confirmation on how to proceed. LibraryThing does accept titles without ISBNs.
8. Choose the most relevant cataloguing sources for your data. I chose to have LibraryThing search for the records firstly at the National Library of Australia, then the State Library of Queensland and the British Library. There are hundreds of reliable sources to find the books and other resources.

By uploading only a small portion of records, the data was usually processed within half an hour. I then checked each upload to see if all records had been processed or if a few needed to be edited or added manually. LibraryThing adds Dewey numbers and Subject Headings so we used the Tags field for our local subjects. The tags data needs editing but that is easy to do in LibraryThing with bulk edit.

While the process of uploading all our data is not yet complete, our online catalogue is now available for anyone to search. Still to be added – local Queensland resources, Journals and maps. Most of our CDs have been migrated to our internal data library.

At TinyCat I then set up preferences for what data appears on the home page and the search pages. LibraryThing’s YouTube channel has plenty of short videos on how to set up TinyCat features for the intended audience.

Future plans – later in the year we may add patrons and use the built in loans function, but first we’ll finish adding and tidying up the data. Here's our work in progress.

Cooroy-Noosa Genealogical & Historical Group TinyCat – Profile on LibraryThing
How to search our catalogue – a short screencast guide

Some small Australian libraries using LibraryThing and TinyCat

The profile links for these libraries show the variety of ways in which data can be structured, by collections, tags and media. The first link in each line is the TinyCat platform.

• Pioneers  Association of South Australia - Profile on LibraryThing 
• NarreWarren Family History Group  - Profile on LibraryThing
• Cairns District Family History Society - Profile on LibraryThing
• Beaudesert Branch GSQ - Profile on LibraryThing
• Tamborine Mountain Family History Group - Profile on LibraryThing

Pros 

affordable, web interface
easy to add resources
Professional cataloguing data from hundreds of the world's libraries
built in circulation model
TinyCat features are adaptable to individual libraries - choose the fields you want displayed, edit the home page

Limitations

A minor one but may be important for your organisation - No data field for purchase price, we'll keep this data elsewhere.

If your volunteer organisation has less than 20 000 records,TinyCat by LibraryThing may provide you with a cheap but professional online catalogue. I have no affiliation with LibraryThing other than being a satisfied personal user since 2006.

• This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info

Once upon a shelf

"Whither does your library wander?"

How do you keep track of the books you have purchased, both ebooks and paper versions?

Where do you house your ebook collection?

What solution works for you?

Where does your local genealogy, family history society list its collection?

Is it available for all to easily search or browse online? 

I’ve been pondering these questions this week as I review my own practice and that of a variety of small genealogy libraries. Since 2006 I’ve had a LibraryThing account and was delighted when they offered an easy interface for searching one’s own collection. Recently I’ve joined a local historical and genealogical society which has a varied collection of about 5 000 items and I’ve been investigating various ways of enhancing the existing catalogue.

Personal Libraries 

I list books I have read and those I own both in paper or digital form in LibraryThing. You can view or search through TinyCat - my collection is here . This centralised listing lets me quickly search to check for any previously read or purchased title. Titles can be listed in collections, either one collection or a multiple of collections, and they can have multiple tags attached to any one item to make for easy retrieval.

There are a myriad of possibilities for storing your ebooks to make them available across all your devices. Evernote, Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Google Play Books or any other cloud service that you use.

I always download purchased copies of ebooks to my computer first rather than to a device. Then I relocate it in a cloud service depending on the format and its DRM status. I use Evernote to house the many of my digital books due to its powerful search features and use the tag in Librarything ‘ebook in evernote.’ Within Evernote itself the book may also have a variety of tags. Other tags for ebooks I have in LibraryThing are Kindle and Calibre. I use Calibre for books that are not DRM limited in order to convert them to other formats.

 Another solution is provided by Lisa Louise Cooke. She has written a comprehensive guide on how to upload your e-books to your own Google Play books library. Be aware that Google can not search within the ebooks you upload here. If you were to take this path then books could be labelled with an appropriate tag in LibraryThing.

Genealogy and Historical Societies 

Integrated library management systems are a high cost item for small societies who depend on volunteers to do all the fundraising, library acquisitions and management as well as providing ongoing education for their members.

While investigating a range of small societies across Australia it is evident that few can afford an integrated library management package. The exceptions are generally located in the capital cities where there may be more members and perhaps access to better funding exists.

A few societies such as Hornsby are fully integrated with the local council’s public library system providing their users with online access and extended hours. Some small societies in South Australia such as Clare also have their collections catalogued within the town’s library collections. I found publicly accessible links to searchable catalogues in larger collections in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, and a beta trial on Caloundra's website.

Of the dozens of other family history and genealogical society pages I visited, I noted that PDF listings of catalogue collections were the most common way of trying to make collections visible. Some societies have their library collections behind a membership paywall so it was impossible to value what they may have had to offer the wider community.

Small societies may like to investigate the feasibility of using TinyCat for their collection. Collections up to 20 000 items can be made visible to the wider population interested in family history at a very low cost. At this stage I have found a few small societies using TinyCat.

I am in no way connected to LibraryThing or TinyCat  other than as a satisfied long term user. I am also a former teacher librarian who can see that this is good value for money. Titles can be imported into the system from a range of file types. Collections can be tailored to suit each individual group's needs.

Some Genealogy TinyCat libraries 

The Pioneers Association of South Australia has around 850 items
vahistorical society - more than 6 600 items and
Oklahoma Genealogical Society with at least 2 500 items currently catalogued under a wide range of collections

Imagine - one tap access to your library collection!

Once the collection has been added it is possible to add that cute little cat to the home screen of a phone or tablet for one tap access. No more forgetting titles that are already in the collection!

You may now like to revisit my library to view how collections or any relevant search can be added as a link on this simple interface.
Other information can be added below the search box where I've placed links to this blog and my family history blog at Earlier Years.

The robust circulation module allows books to be loaned just by title, no need for barcodes unless you select to use them. My collection has the circulation module disabled as this catalogue is just for my use.

Need some suggestions on what to acquire or read next? Geniaus (Jill) and Shauna both have a wide range of genealogy related titles listed in their libraries.

Where is your library online? Is it easily searchable or a dense 280 page PDF with limited information about titles?

If you are a member of an Australian genealogical, heritage or historical society and would like to publicise your available catalogue, please add it in the comments below.

Would TinyCat work for you or for your society, club or organisation? Do you have any other cost effective systems to recommend for cash-poor volunteer organisations?

This post first appeared on https://librarycurrants.blogspot.com

eMagazines - Borrow or buy?

Borrow or buy?

Subscription models for emagazines range from the confusing to the simply outrageous which double up the price from the print subscription. Some magazines offer the digital version of their product free when the print version is purchased, others offer stand alone apps with a wide variety of models in between. Some subscriptions open in apps, some in web browsers. A search for emagazines reveals a wealth of sites offering to publish your work as a magazine but also points to agencies for online subscriptions which are often subscription options for print versions of magazines.

When our local library recently supplied access to more than 360 magazines through Zinio I was keen to explore this new option. Could this supply the ideal option? The sign up process requires both a library card and a Zinio account. Zinio provides a generic guide to guide users through this process.

Advantages

Free access to hundreds of magazines - read those not usually available in your local store.

Limitations

Current version of magazines only available - no back copies
Saving articles limited to screenshots
Favourite magazines may not be available

These alternative instructions may help Sunshine Coast library users

1. Click on the Zinio link
2. Choose Create Account
3. Enter your library card number and validate.
Now you will need to set up a free Zinio account by entering your email address and a password.
Follow the link in the welcome email you receive. You are now ready to start browsing. Choose a magazine and a new tab in the browser will open which will contain your reading list.

You can return to the other tab to add more magazines.
a. Start reading in the browser by clicking on the magazine – it will open inside your browser
And/Or
b. Install the Zinio app on your phone or tablet and login with your Zinio account details to read the magazines on your portable device.

ALWAYS browse and select magazines through your browser – Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Firefox etc. not through an app on your phone or tablet.
On subsequent visits to the emagazines just enter your email address and the Zinio password you chose – no need to put in your library card number again.

Purchaser beware!

One of my favourite magazines, Delicious, is not available through the library collection so I looked to purchase it online.

I had downloaded the free app with the option of subscribing from within the app when I decided to check out the option for subscribing from Zinio. Results - In app purchase $24.99 for 6 months, Zinio purchase $19.99 for 6 month - buyer beware!

What options do you find most useful for reading your favourite magazines? Check out your local libray to see if they have an online collection of emagazines for you to browse and borrow.

Libraries empowering customers

Travelling light

Our local library like so many other libraries has many identities and roles. Excellent services are provided to the housebound by a group of dedicated volunteers and library staff provide a variety of training for a range of technology tools, to name but two of the myriad of services provided.

The local area has many retirees with time to travel and the library has graciously provided the venue for me to present a session on Tech for Travel. The session  will cover a wide  range of tools available to the traveller in planning their journey, mobile apps to use while on the road and preservation of holiday memories.

Here is a short screencast on how to make an ebook from Wikivoyage.

Next up, preparing a Readlist book for travel purposes.
Which other web tools are you using for making ebooks?
What are your favourite travel apps?

Free libraries on demand - Australia

Tip of the Day - 2

This is the second in a series of tips for the staff at school but you will find your local libraries provide similar services. Pop in today and ask your librarian.

• Get your free Library card from the State Library of NSW to access all their databases from home
• The National Library of Australia also provides this service.  Register for your free card here

The National Library of Australia eResources

The state libraries in each Australian jurisdiction have similar arrangements. If you are a resident of another state find the details here.
State Library of Victoria
State Library of South Australia
State Library of Western Australia
State Library of Tasmania
State Library of Queensland
Northern Territory Library

Lending a hand

photo credit: Meredith_Farmer via photopin cc

It is always a privilege to be asked to present a session for other teachers. Last Thursday I had the opportunity to provide some training and guidance for library staff at another school. Their particular need for LibGuides training played to my expertise and I was delighted to lend a helping hand.

We have been using the LibGuides platform for a library web presence for 12 months now and are most impressed with functionality, flexibility and back end support. The presence of a strong community of librarians from around the world adds to its usefulness as resources are shared freely for others to use.

The statistics clearly show our library site is being well used with our Mathematics guide alone showing more than 1500 viewings this year.

Some guidelines to consider for your library if you are interested in using LibGuides are listed in an earlier post here. 

Facebook in school libraries

Early this year I expressed my concern to colleagues about our marketing of books and reading to the students. Statistics show Facebook "has" our students. Each class surveyed in the library by show of hands, demonstrates more than 75% in the secondary years, have a Facebook account.

What an excellent opportunity this presents for establishing a page to promote reading and/or other library services.

Many schools and educators are still very wary of using Facebook given the negative incidents that are highly reported in the media. While some schools fail to take on responsibility for teaching digital citizenship skills, this fear of social media may still be found amongst teachers.

How many of the staff at your school are truly comfortable and knowledgeable with their own use of Facebook?

I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to present an awareness raising session for some staff this week. Some were Facebook users others were not. To cater for the diverse audience within a limited time frame, I chose to concentrate only on an overall view of the differences between personal accounts, pages and groups.
It is important for staff to be able to counsel and educate students about the use of social media so for those without a Facebook account this opportunity to "see" what students see was important. The presentation was used in conjunction with a live Facebook site. Yes, there are a myriad of privacy settings, but only by investigating can educators have a good understanding. I'm delighted to have had much positive feedback from staff.

Excellent examples of the use of Facebook for school libraries have shown us what works. Members of my PLN have modelled good practice:
Leanne Windsor at the Illawarra Grammar School TIGS Library (Goodhew Centre)
Buffy Hamilton at Creekview HS The Unquiet Library
Our library page at The Arthur Holt Library is relatively new and has been promoted to my PLN and some Facebook friends. One needs 25 "likes" to claim a shortened, easy to remember URL.
This having been achieved, now comes the task of marketing, gently gently, to the students and school community.

I'm interested in hearing from others who use a Facebook page for their school library.

Many pathways: LibGuides

photo © 2007 Chris Gladis | more info (via: Wylio)
What criteria do you use when considering the publication of library pathfinders? Do you have procedures in place to regularly review their content and appropriateness?

These questions have been in my thoughts for some time now, and I have been prompted to write set guidelines for our staff as we move content to LibGuides.
Joyce Valenza's New Tools pathfinder has attracted much well deserved positive comment along with a suggestion for a slight reorganisation by Colette Cassinelli. This has led me to look at and evaluate Libguides content from many schools around the globe. I have taken inspiration from many, in particular from the LibGuides published by Leanne Windsor at TIGS and Cathy Oxley at Brisbane Grammar School.

In our context, several staff will have the opportunity to write and publish guides. Like Joyce and many other librarians, we have had guides in many different places and sometimes these have varied widely in standards.
The following guidelines have been written to remind us to consider as many options as possible. Your comments are welcome.

Policy and Procedures

This site is the web portal to learning resources developed by the teacher librarians in conjuction with the Trinity Grammar School community of learners. http://trinity.nsw.libguides.com/index.php

Guides published here must meet the following criteria:

• Is there a demonstrated need for information on this subject?
• Has the appropriate faculty, department, subject teacher been consulted? 
• Are procedures in place to notify all relevant stakeholders?
• Has a timeline been established for publication and review of guide?

Guides are to contain the following basic information:

1. Guide description, includes purpose and scope of guide.  
2. Association to a Subject area so that guides are appropriately grouped and appear in the Subject search list
3. Tags of a general nature, likely to be used by students or staff for retrieving material.
4. Individual pages (tabs) within guides should be ordered alphabetically unless there are special circumstances, e.g. where HSC and IB tabs are used they should be adjacent. This rule also applies to sub-pages in dropdown menus.

Individual pages

1. The Home page of each guide must contain a Links to Guides box in the upper left column. The contents of this box can be determined by the guide’s author, either a selection of related guides, popular guides or recently published guides. 
2. Each page added must include a description.
3. A page should be added only when there is likely to be enough content to be used in 2 or 3 columns, i.e. enough to fill an average web screen.  If there is not this amount of material, consider a box on a related page, it can always be moved to a new page should the need arise.
4. Pages are to be added as tabs where possible unless sub topics clearly fit underneath a particular heading. A subject guide may have tabs for Year levels with pathfinders for those year levels as subpages.
5. Pages should be hidden while editing, this applies particularly where a new page is being added to an already published guide.
6. Each page should have at least one illustrative element, i.e. image, video or other visual. High quality images and screenshots should be used rather than clipart.
7. Column width can be adjusted when needed, but the 3 column layout is the preferred default. 

Content
Content within guides should be selected for quality, authority, relevance and the reading level of intended audience. It should include as many of the following elements as possible:

• web links
• database search guide – list of suitable databases, recommended searches and/or journals 
• embedded multimedia – webcasts, podcasts, webinars, video, audio, interactive content or any other non-textual format 
• primary sources 
• recommendations for mobile apps (multiple platforms) 
• reading list of books, physical and/or etexts 
• RSS feeds
• Recommended search terms for web, library catalogue and social bookmarking sites
• Images, charts, mindmaps, diagrams and other non-interactive representations of information

Publication Procedure

All guides are to be previewed by the Head of Information Services before publication.

Guides are to be allocated a ”friendly URL” at the point of publication.

What have I missed? Do you have further suggestions?

In and Out, digital roundabout

photo © 2010 Priit Tammets | more info (via: Wylio)
IPad and Kindle loans

Starting this week, we will be lending iPads for use in the library during out of class hours. The library is open from 8am -6pm daily so there are before school timeslots, lunch times and after school. With our intial 2 WiFi only iPads, this provides the opportunity for up to 30 students in Years 7-11, per week to have access. Year 12 all have individual, school issued iPads. The iPads have filtered internet access, there is no mail client configured and in app purchases are not possible due to password restrictions.

The iPads have been added to our library management system so easy tracking of student use is enabled. Depending on demand we may implement an advance booking system, but regular library users will be the first to see the in library signs.

To what use will these iPads be put? We have loaded a wide range of free apps from drawing and art to chemical reactions and calculators. Loan conditions are minimal but encourage responsibility
1. Enjoy the experience
2. Return the iPad exactly as loaned to you, all apps closed, all apps in place, no changes
to settings or wallpapers
3. Requests for further apps may be made on return of iPad. Request does not guarantee subsequent app acquisition.

Our two WiFi Kindles will also be available for student borrowing from this week. They have been loaded with seven popular titles that are always in demand. The loan conditions are similar to those for the iPads except for loan period and the fact that the Kindles will be taken home.

We look forward to our students' responses to these initiatives, their feedback will help determine our further directions with these devices.
Are your library management strategies for digital equipment working well? I would value hearing of your experiences.

Advocacy and Review 2011

What do we do in 2011?

This week I had the opportunity to present a review of library programs and activities to the Education subcomittee of the School Council. This was a great opportunity to reflect on past achievements, current practices and project developments for the library in our particular context. Ours is a library catering for Years 3 -12 with the senior and junior school operating on separate timings.

The changing nature of information services in a school is not always apparent to your Council,  or whatever body oversees your school. I was fortunate to have 45 minutes to expand and explain many of the things from this list. I cannot post the presentation as it contains many photos of our students, but here is an outline of points covered.

1. What is library ? Familiar scenes - collections, users and activities
2. What is library? The more recent - digital collections, ereaders, mobile devices, etexts
3. Changing nature of use by students - collaborative activities
4. Information tools available for library users - website, databases, curriculum pathfinders and more
5. Specific tools - staff newsletter, digital video collection
6. Class uses of library with specific examples, hours and timings
7. Reading promotion activities - blogs and other tools
8. Changing nature of content curation, new tools
9. 2011 projects - LibGuides, Destiny quest, QR codes, development of Junior School resource centre and subsequent review of our space

This was a valuable exercise and the positive feedback from the committee augured well for the future of our library. When did you last present to your governing body?