Everything is on the Internet. Isn't that what you've heard? Many media reports on genealogy would lead you to believe that you can research your entire ancestry on the Internet, without leaving the comfort of your home. While it is true that more and more productive research can be accomplished on the Web, the reality is that many of the documents we need to enrich our family history are still only located in the stacks of archives.

Different Types of Researchers
Traditional access to archival holdings by researchers has been on-site at an archive, with assistance and context provided by an archivist. For researchers working on in-depth projects, this method of access could require days or weeks on-site, depending on the size of the collection and the extent of the project. The researcher would likely have had to communicate with the archive to determine its holdings, as the finding aids were also only at the archive.

The widespread popularity of the Web in recent years seems to have divided researchers into two distinctly different camps. Traditional researchers, such as those described above, look to the Web to provide new tools for access to archives, such as finding aids and indexes to collections. These researchers have typically received some sort of training that has instilled in them the value of looking at primary documents in the context of their collection. For example, the Reuther Library has some 313 finding aids on its website since its primary audience is interested in finding aids online. Many archival institutions have similarly placed finding aids online, to assist researchers in effectively planning their research trips.

The new breed of Internet researchers has an expectation that they will be able to find everything on the Web, from fully indexed collections to actual digital images of whatever they seek. Sometimes they are able to find these types of collections, but more often than not, the collections they seek have not been digitized. These researchers typically have not received training in the use of archival materials, but generally are looking to find their ancestors—fast.

Companies like Ancestry.com and ProQuest have been actively digitizing and indexing the most popular sources for genealogical research, from censuses to newspapers to passenger lists. These subscription sites have dramatically improved much of the early phase of ancestral research and leave Internet researchers hungry for more.

To Digitize or Not to Digitize
Many institutions are now either in the midst of digitizing projects or are researching the possibilities. One of the main arguments against placing digital collections on the Web is the reality that researchers will not benefit from the assistance available in an archive because there will be no archivist to provide context to the records.

In her book, Why Digitize? (Council on Library and Information Resources, 1999), Abby Smith states, “Some of the drawbacks of digital technology for access, as for preservation, stem from the technology's uncanny ability to represent the original in a seemingly authentic way. Working with digital surrogates can distort the research experience somewhat by taking research materials out of the context of the reading room.”

Not all researchers need assistance with context. But they may need assistance if digital collections are placed on the Web as individual pages rather than as part of a cohesive collection, as you might find on microfilm or with original records.

One of the main advantages of placing digital images on the Web, if it is done properly, is the access researchers have to collections stored remotely. This access is enhanced if the digital collections are indexed and the indexes are linked to digital copies of the original records, as are most of the census collections on Ancestry.com. The experience is more profoundly valuable to the researcher if links to like collections on other websites are included within the context of an online collection.

Archives considering digital projects may believe there will be cost savings and other internal benefits, but that has not proved to be the case. Instead, an increased work load for digitally processing a collection is one tangible problem being encountered.

Leon J. Stout, former president of the Society of American Archivists, says, “Just as we learned with microfilm, mediating access through technology does not save the archives any work—collections must still be processed and described, and then, in addition, converted to another format, in this case, digitized” ("Reimagining Archives: Two Tales for the Information Age," The American Archivist 65 [Spring/Summer 2002]: 14).

Access
The issue of access is perhaps the most complicated for those looking to place collections online. It is not a matter of “if you build it, they will come.” Archives websites have to be planned carefully to provide the user with a meaningful experience. Just placing finding aids on a website, without providing proper links and explanations, and key words to aid in searching, will provide the same benefit as not placing finding aids there at all.

However, when researchers can access finding aids online, they may ultimately be able to save archives staffs time, both in person and by reducing the number of e-mail, telephone, or mail requests.

Preservation
There is great debate in archival literature about the value of preserving primary sources digitally. Some say that digital imaging is not preservation. Since the 1930s, the federal government and many institutions have been using microfilm to preserve primary documents. In some cases, such as census records, the originals were microfilmed and then destroyed or sent to other institutions for safekeeping. It has been thought that microfilm would last up to 500 years, but those expectations have been seriously diminished by the chemicals used in the various generations of microfilm.

The Genealogical Society of Utah of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) has been microfilming original records worldwide since the 1930s. The Church discovered several problems with the microfilm along the way.

“The original microfilms used in the late 1930s, and for a decade or two after, were found to emit a flammable gas as they aged. Spontaneous combustion was a real possibility. Consequently, the LDS Church switched to acetate-based microfilm materials as soon as they became available. Acetate does not create dangerous gases. For safety reasons, the older microfilms were copied to the newer technology films,” writes Dick Eastman (Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, 24 November 2003).

The acetate films, however, started to scratch and become brittle after a couple of decades, so the Church switched to acetone-based microfilm. These should withstand the test of time. However, the microfilm cameras used in filming are becoming scarce, as are the parts to fix the machines. The digital imaging craze has all but eradicated the need for new microfilm cameras, so they are no longer being made.

This has forced the LDS Church to look at digitization as a preservation technique. The Church is now sending scanning teams to locations that have agreed to allow it to “film” previously unfilmed collections.

“The best part of the plan is in the ease of replication. Making a copy of a microfilm introduces fuzziness, or ‘visual noise.' However, a copy of a digital image is identical to the original. You can make copies of copies of copies; each new image is identical to the original with no signal loss,” continues Eastman.

The primary purpose of the LDS Church in digitizing collections is to allow its vast user base access to data for family history research in their homes. The Church does put some collections online.

It should be noted that the LDS Church has made archival collections available on microfilm to genealogists for years, and these collections come with no archivist interpreter and lack the archival environment. It's up to the genealogist to make sense of the data found.

Selection Criteria
Digital collections are appearing online with more and more rapidity. How does a library or archive make the decision on what to digitize and place online?

In the case of the Vigo County (Indiana) Public Library, the decision was based on a collection that was frequently requested but only had limited availability on microfilm. The library received a grant specifically for digitizing the Vigo County marriage records from 1931 to 1951. After deciding the exact method for digitization, the records were indexed for better access on the Web. The project was so successful that the library received another grant to digitize selected local history pamphlets and books.

In another project, selection criteria seems less relevant than making all “ancient” records widely available to the public via the Internet. The Alachua County, Florida, Clerk of the Circuit Court provided the vision to allow “public access to the county's records via the Internet, and to streamline and improve the delivery of services to the constituency.” (George G. Morgan, “Low Budget, High-Tech Genealogy,” Genealogical Computing 22 [Oct/Nov/Dec 2002]: 15-20.)

In some cases, the county records have been indexed and are available online in a searchable database, such as the “Marriage License Search, 1837–May 1973.”

Archives may use frequency of requests as a criterion for a digitization project.

“Scanning for our needs opens the door to scanning for patron needs. Frequently now, users request copies of photographs and document images in scanned form to be e-mailed to them or placed on FTP sites for downloading,” writes Stout in his article for The American Archivist.

Copyright and donor permission issues may preclude some collections from being considered for digitization and Web placement. Archivists have to ensure that all legal questions surrounding a collection are resolved before moving forward on such a project.

Funding
In an era of across-the-board funding constraints, how do archives find money for Web projects? In some cases, the money isn't available. In other cases, creative funding is needed and dependent upon on the urgency of placing collections online. In the Vigo County, Indiana, library project discussed earlier, three separate grants were received to allow the library to follow through on its project. The Alachua County initiative was handled differently. No special funding was procured. The most valuable resources for that project were the two individuals responsible for making it happen, who also effectively used an army of volunteers to index their projects.

There are other funding issues that must be considered, such as hardware and software upgrades, compatibility, and security.

“While the need for archives to guarantee our rights and hold our government accountable to its citizenry doesn't diminish, the cultural uses of archives will continually increase—and it's via the Web that people will seek that information. So the archives doesn't disappear—all of that content has to be somewhere—we just will do much more of our business for remote researchers, and this does have implications for how we spend our resources and our time at work,” says Stout.

Looking Toward the Future
What does the future hold for archives and the Internet? The volume of finding aids and digital collections will continue to grow exponentially on the Web. Researchers will continue to demand more and more content online, but they will also have to realize some of the inherent dangers in the data available.

As Smith so eloquently states in her book, “Digital technology can, indeed, prove to be a valuable instrument to enhance learning and extend the reach of information resources to those who seek them, wherever they are, but only if we develop it as an addition to an already well-stocked tool kit, rather than a replacement for all of those tools which generations before us have ingeniously crafted and passed on to us in trust.”

Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, CGRS, CGL, is the managing editor of Genealogical Computing and a frequent contributor to Ancestry Magazine.

Return to September/October 2004 issue of Ancestry Magazine