Paper? Or Something More e-Tastic?

I finally got around to renewing my NEHGS membership the other day, and opted, once again, to receive a paper version of the Register. I have to admit I love getting my society publications in the mail, but I am from California, so always feel guilty about using paper when I don't have to. Plus, what's to like about a bookshelf full of dusty volumes that I can't search on my computer? And though I love to hold some paper in my hand when I read, I LOVE (like LOVE, like want to up and marry) my Kindle, and haven't read a "real life" book in the year and a half since I received it as a gift. An e-version saves trees, saves postage, saves fuel, maybe even saves gnomes. Just sayin'.

So, you would think, I'm a natural candidate for a digital version of the Register. But I'm also someone that doesn't do a whole lot of extensive reading on my computer. Too many temptations to get on Facebook, too hard to read the text on the screen, and my computer chair just isn't that comfortable.

I love that the NEHGS Register is available as a searchable PDF, and I love that the issues are available and searchable online. But I wish that they were available as an ePub file, instead of (or, really, in addition to) a PDF.

PDFs are great, but reading them on a Kindle really is NOT. I like to fall asleep to the soothing well-citationed sounds of Register articles in my mind, but reading PDFs on a Kindle is a navigational and low-functionality nightmare that I'm not interested in ruining my reading experience for. How excellent would it be to have an ePub version of the Register on my Kindle, where I could read and take notes? Pretty darn excellent.

It seems to me that genealogy societies have a vested interest in encouraging members to adopt e-versions of their publications. Saves them lots of money in printing and shipping costs, for one. So why aren't they making it just that much easier for me (and other Kindle users like me) to go digital?

Hey Genealogy Society, want me to adopt the e-version of your publication? Give me an ePub version!!!

Or send me a new iPad.

Totally up to you.

The Ancestry Newspaper Rollout: Why I Say "Meh"

As you've undoubtedly heard, ancestry.com amped up their inventory of newspapers today.

I use the newspaper collection somewhat, and am glad to see that they have expanded their title base, but without a modified, clarified... or dare I say improved search function, this new collection will be just as useless as the last one.

When it comes to the search functions for their newspaper collection, why can't Ancestry seem to get exact phrase searches right? It's hardly impossible... Newspaperarchive.com used to have the same problem, but recently released a beta search that is lightyears better than what they had previously, and actually allows you to search for exact phrases. All of the NewsBank products have great exact-term searching. The best I've seen is the 19th Century Newspapers database put out by Gale, which serves up great results that match your search query, or it gives you nothing at all.

Call me selfish, but this is how I expect databases to act.

What I can't stand is a database that forces you to wade through thousands of false hits because it can't seem to consider a first and surname as a singular, searchable unit. Is this too much to ask from a genealogy website?

Until Ancestry can get their act together and get a proper search function up for their newspaper collection, these sorts of trumpeted rollouts will fall short. When they announced the impending paper rollout on May 5th of this year, the blog had the gumption to mention that "newspapers have not been highly used on Ancestry to date", as if they were perplexed by why that could be. The comments backed me up and made me realize I am not alone in my frustration with searching through the collection.

Am I just another frustrated "Jones" surname researcher? Perhaps. But I also love much of what Ancestry does across their site, and I appreciate that they are continually expanding the role of the internet in everyone's genealogy research. And as someone who really believes in the value of newspapers for genealogical research, I wish they would show those newspapers, and this new, vast newspaper collection, the respect that it so richly deserves.