Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Are Books Obsolete?


You are probably thinking such a question incredulous, especially following on the heels of mega-events such as the double-header RootsTech-FGS Conference extravaganza, where attendees likely scheduled extra time for research at the world’s largest genealogical library.

Right. That library holds at least three hundred thousand volumes of genealogical books. Oh, and over seven hundred thousand microfiche. Not to mention microfilmed rolls numbering in the millions. Books? A fraction of the total picture, when it comes to genealogical research.

Even so, I still get ecstatic when I can get hold of a volume that contains surnames from my family. I like books.

I ask this question for a secondary reason, though. Recently, our genealogical society’s board was discussing this very question. The issue at hand is the fact that many such societies task themselves with preserving old documents from their localities through the process of publishing books useful for research. In addition to adding to the body of knowledge that other researchers find useful, selling such publications becomes a way to fund further activities of the society. In other words, publishing provides a society’s livelihood. Not publishing is the equivalent of losing a fundraising revenue stream. Like the old academic’s dilemma: publish or perish.

What’s a local genealogical society to do? If no one is buying books any longer, a society will—eventually—no longer be selling books.

That puts someone like me—a member of said genealogical society’s board—in a tough place. I love books, personally. But I hate to see good money thrown after bad, investing time and money into a project which is ultimately doomed to fail—at least from the sales angle.

Enter a secondary dynamic into the ring: that of the big players in the genealogical market. Used to be, the care and feeding of genealogical researchers was left to specialty publishers and genealogical societies. Now, genealogy is big business—sometimes so big, it can run the little guys off the playing field.

Does this become a chicken and egg dilemma, questioning which comes first—the lack of purchaser interest, or the lack of viable product to sell? Those “big guys” in the genealogy market supply side are often aggregators of material already in existence. Not so for local societies like mine: we create our own material, often from source documents no one in the large companies has deemed worthy of mass producing. You could say ours is a micro-niche market. But at least we had a market.

And so the debate winds around, from “nobody buys books anymore” to “the big companies have it all” to “no, they don’t include anything from our county.”

Perhaps the answer is a smarter form of needs assessment—the savvy market survey. Perhaps we need to learn from those who’ve experienced success in markets other than genealogy. Obviously, there are people out there making a living, supplying needs that others are willing to pay money for, providing some very specialized products. Why can’t we do that for the genealogy market?

Included in that discussion would be a return to the very question I started off with: are books obsolete? Can a genealogy book find life in today’s digitized world?

If given a choice, which would you buy?



Above: Giuseppe Crespi, "Bookshelf with music writings," oil on canvas circa 1725; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

12 comments:

  1. I guess I'm one who just doesn't buy books. I've bought a few. However, when I was at the NGS Conference last May, I couldn't look very long at the booths selling books. I don't know why exactly -- maybe I'm just tight and don't want to pay for one line that applies to my family. But a coffee table book, now that's different. My historical society recently published a small book primarily of photos. Yes, I bought it even though my family was not even represented. (How did I miss the call for donations of pictures??)

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    1. I can see where the coffee table book would be a treasure. Too bad you missed the call for photos on that one.

      I tend to avoid book sellers, too, Wendy, but likely for different reasons. I'm truly a sucker for books. That old Erasmus quote rings true in my case: "When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes."

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  2. I buy genealogy/family history books, glean what I want and then donate to my society's library. I also do that with DVDs from my area of research. This way more people benefit. I think the more people can do online, the less time they want to spend with a book. It will be years before books really go out of style.

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    1. That's a great idea, Karen: to donate your books and research material so more can benefit, too.

      Part of the dilemma might have something to do with how much we all are squeezed for time. Researching digitized versions of books online, with handy search capabilities, certainly speeds up the process for genealogy researchers. Who'd buy the actual book when you can jump in and jump out, online, with exactly the information you are seeking?

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  3. The other side of this is that a local genealogy society could offer something not available in book form - partner with a local court to digitize land & will records (or at least the indexes), and offer a service to make available individual records as digital copies. You may find people willing to pay for this.

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    1. Good point, Patrick. This is likely the direction we will continue with, as the subject matter of the books we've already compiled has been indices of such registers and other records. The next logical step is to create a way to include the material on our website, or find another way--such as ebooks--for distribution. People still need that information--it's just that our way of thinking has been shifted, now that we know the search capabilities of computerized access.

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  4. What a situation. I found that people did not want to buy books and they were happiest with folders I kept on the families about town. So I just made them copies of the info we had. There were probably 500 Genealogy books that just sat on the shelves that no one ever looked at in the three years I was at the museum.
    I think some books are better off online at least they might be found and used. Of course I am all about sharing info as freely as possible.
    The Museum sold local authors books and a book about Townships that they compiled years ago...but as an income or a fundraising project...just not worth the effort.....but that is just my opinion:)

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    1. You have a unique perspective on this, Far Side, thanks to your role at the museum. It seems people do want to know, but seldom want to find out.

      We do get a good response to the books we've donated to our local library--almost four thousand volumes of reference material--but it seems the only ones interested in purchasing our publications have been libraries. However, I suspect many of the people using our reference material downtown come there more for the individualized help our volunteers provide than for the books, themselves. The books just seem to be a nice afterthought...something I find hard to actually admit, since I love books so much.

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  5. I don't think some books will ever be totally obsolete. But the digital is a'coming for better or worse.

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    1. True. And I think most of it is for the better. You sure can't beat search capabilities for digitized old nonfiction books--especially genealogies. On the other hand, it isn't quite the same, trying to curl up with a good Kindle Edition. For those lazy, rainy weekend days, I'll take a book any time.

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    2. Jacqi, I am the publications person for my local society and can tell you book sales have dramatically decreased within the last few years. It's a shame because we created our books with our local researchers in mind. Personally I do like to hold a book in my hands. At the same time I love my ancestry.com subscription and my favorite online newspaper collections. I like Patrick's digitization idea!

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    3. Yes, Patrick brought up a good point there. Something for a lot of us to think about. Just as your society has experienced, we have as well--dramatically, as you say.

      And it's true: we like our online access because it's convenient. But perhaps there can be a place where local societies become the go-between, bridging the gap from large corporate resources and non-digitized local records. We certainly can provide the willing workers--it's engrafted into our mission statements! If we don't ferret out those records, it's unlikely the larger companies will garner them all. Our county is prime example of that--we are a black hole in the genealogical corporate radar, so far, except where they've digitized our compilations and put them online.

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