Press Release for Immediate Distribution: ====================================================================== NATIONAL GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY PARTNERS WITH THE ST. LOUIS COUNTY LIBRARY ====================================================================== The National Genealogical Society's circulating collection of more than 20,000 volumes will have a new home by the end of this year. At its September board meeting in Davenport, Iowa, the NGS Board of Directors ratified its decision to create a strategic partnership with the St. Louis County Library. The NGS circulating collection, part of which is currently housed in off-site storage, will be moved to the St. Louis County Library where it will be available to researchers by January 2002. In February of 2002, the NGS circulating book collection will become available in its entirety for interlibrary loan to both NGS and non-NGS members throughout the country. Both NGS and the St. Louis County Library are committed to significantly growing the circulating collection so that members have a dramatically larger number of books available to them via interlibrary loan. The St. Louis County Library staff will handle loan services previously processed by the NGS librarian and volunteers. The county library's experienced interlibrary loan staff and their expert special collections librarians make this partnership particularly strong. Loans will be executed in a timelier manner and will usually be less expensive for the researcher. Special collections librarians will assist in answering reference questions generated by the loan service. This partnership will enable the NGS librarian and the volunteers to focus on providing programs, projects, and access to other important materials such as the NGS manuscript collection, which will continue to be housed at the NGS headquarters site in Arlington, Virginia. An exciting new project is the development of plans for a genealogical reference help-desk. This help-desk will give members access to reference and referral services to help them find and interpret historical and genealogical information. Tailored to the individual needs of each researcher, this will be a tremendous benefit to NGS members. NGS will continue to accept donations for the circulating collection, and with its partner, make these additional materials available to the entire genealogical community. While the St. Louis County Library will maintain its core genealogy collection as a non-circulating reference collection, the NGS circulating collection will provide the whole genealogical community with access to a significant and growing circulating collection of genealogical reference materials. The National Genealogical Society's core mission is education. It is committed to forming strategic partnerships that will increase benefits for its members as well as the whole genealogical community. This strategic partnership increases important services without duplication. The NGS Board of Directors is dedicated to exploring all possible avenues of increasing member benefits while working to fulfill the society's core mission as a service organization that leads and educates the national genealogical community. About NGS: More information about the National Genealogical Society and its many programs and services can be found at the society's web site: http://www.NGSGenealogy.org The society's mission and objectives can be found at the following link: http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/amission.htm. Information about the St. Louis County Library Special Collections can be found at: http://www.slcl.lib.mo.us/slcl/sc/sc-genpg.htm Contact: Curt B. Witcher President, National Genealogical Society 219-421-1226 CWitcher@ACPL.Lib.in.us