For the past few weeks I’ve neglected blogging because I’ve been deeply entrenched in genealogical research for my family tree.
In doing so I have focused on searching for books online I can read that address the history of places and people, including some of my family ancestors. In doing so I came across a website called Internet Archive that offers free digitized books you can download in pdf, text, or even read online. The particular book I am currently interested in and reading is called A History of Rockbridge County, Virginia. A number of by ancestors are in the book. Those ancestors lived in the 1700s in Rockbridge County, Virginia.
I came across the book via Ancestry.com. Since one cannot download the entire book on Ancestry I went web surfing looking to find the book so I could buy it. Amazon has it for $63.76 new. Then I found it on Internet Archive and downloaded a pdf format of the book, for free!
Internet Archive had some announcements I read about 100 new jobs scanning books in San Francisco. I think that is a tremendous use of the federal stimulus money. The announcement stated:
SF Mayor Gavin Newsom on the Internet Archive’s hiring 100 people to scan books and microfilm from the unemployment rolls leveraging a matching system using stimulus dollars.
The announcement cited a link to a YouTube video in which Mayor Newsom is trying to drum up some some more hiring to digitize library items.
For those of you looking for a job I recommend you follow up on this opportunity. Think of it. How about digitizing books in Nevada’s libraries so they can be read online?
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