It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?: Cruise Reads

Sheila at the Book Journey started the meme “It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?”.  This is my second time participating.

10 whole days of no work, just relaxing, taking genealogy classes and visiting new places means lots of time to catch up on some reading materials.  I brought the following books with me:

• The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton


• The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande


• A Year in the World by Frances Mayes


• The Winter of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart

I also have a bunch of magazines to flip through.  Will I get to all of them?  Doubtful, but I won't run out:-)

 

Fantastic Finds Friday: Book Editiom

In my recent travels in used book stores and on PaperBack Swap, I have found some pretty cool genealogy books I thought I would share with you.

 





I really enjoy reading older genealogy books.  The methods in most books today focus on internet sources, which tend to be few and far between for my areas of research.  Older books teach methods that are still useful and quite important to expand ones research skills beyond that of beginner.

What genealogy books do you find useful?

52 Weeks to Better Genealogy - Week #1

Amy Coffin at the We Tree blog is challenging bloggers to become better genealogists, with a new prompt each week through her 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy:


Week 1 is: Go to your local public library branch. Make a note of the genealogy books in the collection that may help you gain research knowledge. Don’t forget to check the shelves in both the non-fiction section and the reference section. If you do not already have a library card, take the time to get one. If you have a genealogy blog, write about what you find in your library’s genealogy collection.



As my library is part of a large county library system, I went to their website and started searching for genealogy books that I have not yet read.  I have requested the following, which will be delivered over the next few weeks as they become available:


Finding your Italian Ancestors: A Beginners Guide by Suzanne Russo Adams: I have a long list of microfilms to order from the FHC for my Italian ancestors.  This book will hopefully help me see where to take the search beyond the FHC.


In Search of your German Roots: A Complete Guide to Tracing your Ancestors in the Germanic Areas of Europe by Angus Baxter: One of my goals this year is to trace my German ancestry further, this book is highly rated to help me do just that.


Tracing your Pauper Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians by Robert Burlison: This guide is for tracing your English ancestors who were affected by poverty.  As I have found some living in workhouses, this book will be very useful for finding additional records on them.


Genealogy by George G. Morgan: It's by George C. Morgan, how can I not read this?


Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing your Family History by Megan Smolenyak: See above title, just replace author name:-)


Finding Anyone, Anywhere, Anywhen by Noel Montgomery Elliot: This should be useful in my goal to find living relatives this year.


Social Networking for Genealogists by Drew Smith: I have wanted to read this since it came out and my library has just recently bought it.


Google your Family Tree: Unlocking the Hidden Power of Google by Daniel M. Lynch: I need some assistance in setting up Google alerts for my ancestors.


The Oxford Guide to Library Research by Thomas Mann: There is a chapter in here on genealogy.  It should also be helpful for my current schooling.

Book: Library 2.0 and Beyond

Library 2.0 and Beyond: Innovative Technologies and Tomorrow's User, edited by Nancy Courtney, is an introductory book on Web 2.0 technology as used in libraries.  Published in 2007, most of the essays were written a few years prior, making them out-of-date with current Library 2.0 technology.  One example in the section on Wiki's, which does not mention the currently more popular LibGuides.

As Library 2.0 is constantly being discussed in my classes and was the focus of many of my projects this semester, I was very interested to read about the topics by the people who introduced or were among the first to use them.  What I found most fascinating was the chapter on cataloging and ways to make a library catalog more user friendly, often in an Amazon-type way.  After reading this, I now will be doing further research into WPopac, which now appears to be called Scriblio, a free, opensource, WordPress-based technology to attach to an online catalog to "offer rich content management features for all a library’s content" (according to the Scriblio website).

I would recommend this book to librarians who are new to Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 and to people who know the technology but are interested in the historical background of the ideas.

Book Swap

Has anyone checked out the PaperBack Swap?  A friend recommended it to me and so far it is fantastic!  You post books (paperback and hardcover) you no longer want and ship them to people who do.  You then can choose books from others and they send them to you.

You get 2 free book credits for signing up and posting 10 of your books.  You then get one for every one you send out.  There are a few genealogy books and a lot of history and travel ones.  I think we need to get more genealogy books up there!  There are a lot of people who have them on their wishlists...

If you do sign up, please use me as a referral and ask me to be a buddy: amandaea129

Enjoy the inexpensive books and helping the environment!