(+) Why Isn't It Available Online?

Earlier today I received an email message announcing the publication of a new (printed) book that documents all the readable tombstones in a cemetery and provides a map of that cemetery. The single copy of this hand-made book is available at a public library near the cemetery that was documented. That effort results in a valuable resource for anyone researching ancestry in the area IF THEY CAN TRAVEL TO VIEW THE BOOK. For some descendants, that may require travel of thousands of miles.

Of course, thinking about the publication of a single book immediately begs the question, "What about those of us who are unable to travel to a specific library that might be thousands of miles away?" I will suggest it is time to change everyone's thinking about publishing.

The "old mentality" always has been to publish a book in order to preserve information and to make that information available to everyone. Of course, this also implies that the information really is available only to everyone who is able to travel to the location of the book or is able to purchase a copy of the book.

In reality, that's not a very good solution. Economic factors often prevent people from finding the information they seek. Many of us cannot travel to a library that is thousands of miles away. Even the purchase of a copy is difficult. You first have to find if a copy is available for sale. Often, the answer is "no," especially for books published some years ago Next, if you are lucky enough to find copies for sale, you then have to pay for the book plus whatever shipping charges are required. For many of us, it isn't practical to pay $25 or $50 or more for every book that we would like to read, especially if we only need a paragraph or two. Even worse, many of us cannot pay hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars in travel expenses to visit various local libraries and repositories to view books and records of interest.

InterLibrary Loans are a great solution for some books. However, a lot of genealogy books and local history books are not available for loan.

In this day and age, there is a better solution.