Does Your Library Have a Genealogy Department? Do They Have a Genealogy Blog?

Ancestor Research Log is the Genealogy blog of the Plymouth District Library. The Columbus Public Library has the Columbus Public Library Genealogy and Local History blog. The Newberry Library of Chicago has a blog called The Newberry Library Genealogy News. In Mississippi, the Starkville Public Library has the Starkville Public Library Books and Bytes blog for genealogy research and more activities at the library.

Does your library have a Genealogy Department? Do they have a blog?

While libraries are closing and suffering from budget cuts all across the country, many are jumping on the web, their competition, with their own blogs, bringing news to online readers to entice them to use and visit their facilities. This is a great creative method of continuing the value and importance of libraries in our lives as well as our family history research.

Blogs are simple and easy to set up. Your library can have a free blog set up within just a few minutes. The only expense is time. Volunteers and staff must contribute something on a fairly regular basis to keep the blog active and to keep people reading.

Information on classes, workshops, and programs at the library can be publicized. Information on how to use the library for genealogy research, online and offline, helps users maximize their experience.

Have a new book or resource to help researchers? Write about it? Got an old one you want to remind people of? Write about that. What about creating reading lists? Lists for history specific to your area? Or the geology or anthropology cultural history of the region? A reading list about immigration to the area? Or a reading list of books by local authors?

Write about your researchers and volunteers. Who are they? What do they do? Do they specialize? In what? Share their tips on researching in their specialties.

Had an interesting research challenge recently? Share the story of the project and how you handled the research, and what you discovered along the way.

A library is part of the community, so help the library get involved in local genealogy and history events by blogging about them. If a local history group is giving tours of a historical cemetery, write about that and include a list of books with more information about the cemetery, and the people buried there. Does your community have annual events that can be traced back for decades? How about a reading list about the events and celebrations of the past? You need to give people a reason to visit on a regular basis that expands the interest into and outside of the library.

There is so much to write about and share with the public about what happens in your library and genealogy department.

And so many people eager to know. I follow the events on several library blogs in areas where my ancestors lived, even though they are thousands of miles away from me. So what you blog about in your community and library can mean a lot to people living a long way away who still want to stay connected.

Help keep the enthusiasm for your genealogy section of your library going by getting a blog and sharing your passion for your library with others.

For more information on building a genealogy blog, see:

• Genealogy Blog – Starting With a Purpose and a Plan
• What’s the Difference Between a Genealogy Blog and a Normal Blog?
• Genealogy Blog – Who, What, Where, and How Questions for the Plan
• What Do I Do With My New WordPress.com Blog
• Genealogy Blog – Determining What Features I Want in My Blog
• The Blog Budget – How Much Does a Blog Cost?
• Building a Genealogy Blog: The Fast Method
• Genealogy Blog – Choosing a Blog Title and Domain Name and URL
• Genealogy Blog – Blog Contributors – Wanted Dead or Alive

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