Hi: I've just been alerted to the fact that Brigham Young University is now providing fully searchable digitized copies of a growing number of the LDS Libraries' family history books - see: http://www.lib.byu.edu/fhc/ You can use the form on this page to search the full text of these books. A search request (specifying a full text search) on "Clovelly", for example, provides direct links to PDF images of 18 pages from 13 different books that contain the word "Clovelly". A keyword search on "Devon" finds 9 books whose catalogue entries include the word "Devon", but a full text search on the word finds over 5000 pages containing the word. (I've not counted how many different books these come from!) A posting, from another list, provides more details: >You can go to the Brigham Young University website >http://www.lib.byu.edu/ and do searches of over 5000 books which the >Family History Library has put online.* ... the LDS Family History >Library has announced that it has begun the process of digitizing >and making available on the Internet all of the Family History >books in their collection. These are primarily books in the "929.273 >Series" that are currently housed on the first floor of the Family >History Library (previously housed on the fourth floor of the >Joseph Smith Memorial Building). At the present time (September >2005), about 5000 books have been digitized and are available, and >they have announced that they are adding about 100 titles a week >to the on-line collection. Copyright issues are playing a role in >determining the order in which they progress through this task; >books out of copyright are being done first. > >As these Family History books are digitized and placed on-line, an >entry is being placed in the Family History Library on-line catalog >with a hyperlink to the digitized image. By going to the FHL >On-Line Catalog, you can search for a specific name, find a book >that has been indexed using the name, and view it on-line, flipping >through the pages as separate "pdf" images, much the same as if you >were on the first floor of the Family History Library. > >Of course, the indexing that is available through the FHL Catalog >is only as good as the human indexers made it; typically they only >include the "top" 4 to 6 names that appear in each book in their >indexing efforts. But there is even better news! > >The digitized images of these Family History books are actually >being stored on the electronic servers at Brigham Young University >in Provo, Utah. > >By going directly to the BYU web site to view the images, there are >several additional possibilities that provide genealogists >functionality that they have never had before. You are now able to >do full-text searches on each book, and on every digitized book in >the collection. Now you can locate the small two-paragraph entry on >Grandpa Ebenezer McGarrah that is buried in one of the Family >History books that you would have otherwise never thought to look >at before. This can open up a huge new possibility for extending >lines, getting past brick walls, and uncovering new relatives! > >How to Find The Digitized Images? > >Go to the web site of the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU at >http://www.lib.byu.edu/ on their home page, follow the link "Find >Other Materials/Electronic/On Line Collections at BYU". Click on the >"Text Collections" tab and select the "Family History Archive" from >the list of collections that are displayed. (Direct link: >http://www.lib.byu.edu/fhc/) > >You would then normally want to use the "Search All" feature with >the "Search Full Text" box checked, although the "Advanced Search" >will allow very high-powered searches that will allow certain >phrases to be searched for and other words to be used to exclude >potential hits. As you make selections from the "hits" that are >displayed, you will need to use the "Click Here to View >Item" button near the top of the screen to display the actual image >of the page. You can page through the entire document using the >index displayed on the left side of the screen. Each page may be >printed after being viewed. > >One interesting sidelight is, when you are at the first web page >for the Family History Archive (the page that lets you begin a >search), click on the "Browse the Collection" button. This will >display every Family History book that has been digitized and is >available in the collection. > >You can scroll through this list much the same as if you were >walking up and down the stacks at the library. At the top of the >first page of the search results, it displays the number of hits, >which (in this case) is the number of books in the collection. If >you keep track of this number, you can get a pretty good idea of >how fast they are adding titles to the collection as you revisit the >web site from time to time. I think you will want to visit this >site often as the collection grows!" cheers Brian Randell -- School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923 FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/

In message of 13 Nov, Brian Randell <Brian.Randell@newcastle.ac.uk> wrote: > Hi: > > I've just been alerted to the fact that Brigham Young University is > now providing fully searchable digitized copies of a growing number > of the LDS Libraries' family history books - see: > > http://www.lib.byu.edu/fhc/ Many thanks for that. The quality of the scanning is fantastic; I can well imagine that the master scan should be of that quality, 250 dots per inch and 4 bits per pixel, but this produces humungeous files for downloading over the internet at around 750,000 bytes per page. In this country commercial operators usually manage to make very readable pages of 25,000 bytes only; even I can do this inside 40,000 bytes. I would like to think that sometime Brigham Young will go for a more practical format. (In the meantime, they must have had to buy some vast servers to hold the files and service the demand!) -- Tim Powys-Lybbe                                          tim@powys.org              For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org

On Sun, 13 Nov 2005 00:17:03 +0000, Brian Randell <Brian.Randell@newcastle.ac.uk> wrote: >I've just been alerted to the fact that Brigham Young University is >now providing fully searchable digitized copies of a growing number >of the LDS Libraries' family history books - see: > > http://www.lib.byu.edu/fhc/ Yes, it has been available for a few weeks at least - announced on 22 October on the GOONS mailing list plus a short piece in the December 2005 issue of 'Your Family Tree' magazine. The latter states that this is an initial 4,000 books (4,379 this evening) out of a total of about 200,000 without reprint or distribution restrictions to be digitised . . . It is worth noting that when a book has been selected, the left hand bookmark column has an option at the bottom to download the complete book in 30 MB chunks, if it is long enough to so split. With a broadband connection, a laser printer with duplex (double sided printing) facilities and a comb binder it only takes up to half an hour or so to produce your own copy of one of the books . . . Cheers, John John Addis-Smith Thurleigh, Bedfordshire, England

John: >It is worth noting that when a book has been selected, the left hand >bookmark column has an option at the bottom to download the complete >book in 30 MB chunks, if it is long enough to so split. With a >broadband connection, a laser printer with duplex (double sided >printing) facilities and a comb binder it only takes up to half an >hour or so to produce your own copy of one of the books . . . Thanks - I'd not noted that, so its an added incentive to keep an eye on this site. Cheers Brian -- School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923 FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/