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Online books for genealogists

Online books and library catalogs can boost your genealogical research - if you know where to look! The following resources will help get you started. Over the coming months I'll be adding more, so check back.

WorldCat

Some readers may remember the days when they had to trudge down to their local library to find out if a particular book was available through inter-library loan.

Worldcat has changed all this by bringing the library catalog to your computer desktop. It offers over 1 billion items from 10,0000 libraries that include books, videos, music and articles.

Worldcat is very user friendly. Just enter your search term into the box provided and hit the "search" button. For example, I entered the name of the village (Shutford) where my ancestors lived.

My results were returned, nicely organized by "author", "content", "format" and "years". Under the content link my search term (Shutford) was further broken down into various topics such as agriculture.

Clicking on a book title reveals standard bibliographic information and the "OCLO" number. Armed with this number, I was able to arrange to have the book shipped from across the world to my local library.

Another clever feature of Worldcat is the ability to export bibliographic information to popular software programs like "Endnote" and "Refworks". You can also click the "Cite this item" link to view a variety of standard bibliographic styles like "Chicago" and "MLA"

Worldcat is an invaluable tool for any genealogist looking for online books. You can visit the site at:

Worldcat Return to Homepage from Online Books


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