FamilySearch Family History Books Reaches a New Milestone

The following is from FamilySearch.

100,000 Books Have Been Fully Scanned in Time for the FGS Conference in August. Why Not Add Yours to the Collection? FamilySearch has announced a milestone in its collection of Family History Books . One hundred thousand books have now been scanned by the partnership of the Family History Library, Allen County Public Library, and several other important family history libraries in the world. These books are online and available to search and use on the FamilySearch.org website. You can reach the collection by clicking Search and then Books or by simply clicking the link above.  The majority of the books online are family histories, with a smaller portion made up of cemetery records, local and county histories, genealogy magazines, and how-to-books, gazetteers, and medieval histories and pedigrees. These valuable aids are viewed by more than 100,000 people a month. Some equally exciting news is that you are invited to bring your books of genealogical information to the Allen County Public Library to be scanned for free during the week of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) conference. Your books will be added to the online digital book collection Family History Books at FamilySearch.org. This announcement comes just in time for the FGS conference to be held in Fort Wayne, Indiana, August 21–24, 2013 at the Grand Wayne Convention Center. This popular and well-attended genealogical conference is being held at the home of the famous Allen County Public Library this year, a partner with FamilySearch in the scanning effort. Bring your photos as well for the free scanning service. You will be provided with a copy of the scanned images of the books and photographs bring. FamilySearch and the Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center are specifically interested in: Autobiographies and biographies containing genealogical material. Family histories with genealogical information. Indexes to records. Local and county histories. Yearbooks. Starting on Monday, August 19, during normal library hours, the scanning center at the Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center will be open for walk-ins with books. People with photos to scan can bring them starting on Wednesday, August 21. Scanning will continue until Saturday at 3:00 p.m., when the conference ends. Bring your items earlier rather than later because the scans not completed by the end of the conference will have to be returned to you by mail. One word of caution—permission must be obtained from the author or copyright holder before copyrighted books or photos can be scanned. (Most books that were published before 1923 are in the public domain and do not require permission.) There is no limitation on the size of a book for scanning, but photos should not be larger than 8.5 x 11 inches. FamilySearch will have a booth at the FGS convention in the Grand Wayne Conference Center to answer any questions you may have about the scanning project. By the way, you’ll find the Allen County Public Library on Webster Street, just around the corner from the Grand Wayne Convention Center, where the FGS conference is being held. It’s a four-minute walk!