[OPLINTECH] ATTN: Local History and Genealogy Departments

[Becky Hill]

Are you struggling in these hard economic times?  Make your genealogical
collection a source of revenue in the web-based Ohio Obituary Index,
www.rbhayes.org/index, The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center hosts
this award-winning web site that you can join, along with 42 other Ohio
Public Libraries. Once your obituary listings are online people will find
them and either come to your library or order them. We are now partnered
with Ancestry.com and the exposure to our data has increased exponentially
because of that affiliation although our site will always remain free to
view.

 

The Hayes Presidential Center will be demonstrating its Ohio Obituary Index
at the Ohio Library Council's 2010 Expo in Columbus on September 10th.
http://olc.org/expo.asp. I will be there to greet old friends who are
currently partners and encourage other libraries to join us in this online
index of newspaper obituaries and other items, such as local history
collections of clippings, wills and estates, funeral records, etc.

 

Why re-invent the wheel and tax your own too-busy technology department when
we already have done the work, created a very user-friendly interface, and
attracted millions of viewers? Started in 2000, the web-based Index
currently receives almost 230,000 page views a month  (over 2 million hits a
month) and  is cited as a valuable genealogical tool in books and referred
to by over 300 other web sites. At this time, we have over 1,600,000 names
in the database from Fremont to Marietta and citations to over 2 million
newspaper sources. The Ohio Obituary Index received the Technology
Excellence Award given by the New England Historic Genealogical Society.  

 

For $1500, a public library or historical society can join the Hayes
partnership, receive training on how to enter their data, and start
inputting their names into the web-based system.  The only other charge is
an annual fee of $200 for website maintenance and quality control. 

 

Check to see if your Library Director, other staff member or you will be
attending the OLC 2010 Expo and stop by booth #305 to see the Ohio Obituary
Index and the administrative side of the database in action.  If you have
any questions before or after, please contact me at bhill at rbhayes.org or
800-998-7737.

 

Becky Hill 

 

Head Librarian

Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center

Spiegel Grove

Fremont, OH 43420

 

419.332.2081 ext. 231

bhill at rbhayes.org

www.rbhayes.org

419.332.4952 (fax)

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.oplin.org/pipermail/oplintech/attachments/20100901/b8e856f1/attachment-0001.html