Searching the Library of Congress Virtually

Cathi Library of Congress

Searching the Library of Congress Virtually

8 May 2020

Mobile apps help us do all sorts of things. I personally love how apps help us to make our research portable. Think about what apps you use for genealogy. They may include library apps, productivity apps, and genealogy apps. They help us take our research with us as we navigate libraries and archives. They help us search online catalogs. They even help us find our way to the libraries and archives! Library of Congress has a great digital collection and it only makes sense that eventually it would be available to search via an app.

The new free LOC Collections app allows you to easily search the library’s vast digital collections wherever you are. The benefit of using the app over the website is that you can access collections and save your favorite items for future reference.

The new app is fairly easy to navigate. You can Search or Browse collections and View your favorites. That’s it. This app does not feature the entirety of the Library of Congress website, it includes only the Digital Collections (including Chronicling America, the Library of Congresses historical newspaper website. BUT it does not include all of Chronicling America’s features you would find on the website).

To get started, download the free app from your mobile device’s app store.

Click this link for more information:

https://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/2020/05/searching-the-library-of-congress-virtually.html

A Note from WMARE

Cathi General Information, Newsletters ,

We aren’t out of the woods, but things are looking up a bit. The pandemic numbers in Massachusetts and neighboring New York continue to trend downward, and Massachusetts is in Phase One of our cautious reopening. That’s all good news.

But the bad news, of course, is that much of what we genealogy folks rely on to do our research remains closed for now, except for online resources which we hope you are all taking full advantage of. That means there isn’t much genealogy news to put in a newsletter, so we are foregoing that again for another month. We will continue to update our website and Facebook page if there is anything to report. And we’ll reevaluate the situation again at the end of June and see where we stand.

We here at WMARE continue to hope you are all doing well and staying safe and we hope to see you all again soon.

Be Well,

The WMARE Team

A Note from the WMARE Team

Cathi General Information

As the entire country continues to suffer from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we here at WMARE hope you are all following the social distancing guidelines, wearing your face masks when out and about, washing your hands frequently and doing all the other recommended things designed to help keep you safe during these very trying times. We want you all to be able to join us again for genealogy research and maybe a class or two when things get back to normal!

But for right now, outside research is at a standstill with libraries, town halls and other research facilities closed until the pandemic passes. Local genealogy groups have had to suspend most of their meetings and events as a result of the restrictions on large gatherings. That means there isn’t much content to put into a monthly newsletter like ours, so we are suspending publication for the time being until we have something worthwhile to share with you. We’ll re-evaluate that each month, but in the meantime if anything comes up that might be of interest, we’ll publish it on our website blog (which you are reading now) and Facebook page, so keep an eye on those.

Hopefully we’ll be back soon. Until then, please stay safe, look out for each other, and if you can, do some research online at home, and for those of you who have joined us in class – don’t forget that online research is best done while wearing your bunny slippers.

Be Well,

The WMARE Team

American Ancestors Membership Sale

Cathi American Ancestors, General Information ,

If you have ever contemplated an American Ancestors membership, this may be the time to take the plunge.  Through April 30th, membership is discounted $20.00.   The cost is normally $94.95 per year.  Membership benefits include full access to their extensive online databases and publications, access to their library in Boston and discounts on research-for-hire and consultations.

Follow the link for more information:

https://my.americanancestors.org/donate/i/12?&promoApplied=true

National Emergency Library

Cathi General Information

In response to the unprecedented closure of libraries around the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Internet Archive has created The National Emergency Library.  The Internet Archive will suspend waitlists for the 1.4 million (and growing) books in their lending library by creating a National Emergency Library to serve the nation’s displaced learners. This suspension will run through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later.

During the waitlist suspension, users will be able to borrow books from the National Emergency Library without joining a waitlist, ensuring that students will have access to assigned readings and library materials that the Internet Archive has digitized for the remainder of the US academic calendar, and that people who cannot physically access their local libraries because of closure or self-quarantine can continue to read and thrive during this time of crisis, keeping themselves and others safe.

This is an amazing resource.  Be sure and check it out at the link below.

https://archive.org/details/nationalemergencylibrary