Noted genealogist and genea-blogger James Tanner posted two blog posts in the last month about Changes to the FamilySearch Catalog - see them at The Beginning of the End of the FamilySearch Catalog or another Beginning? (posted 25 October 2024) and Update on the end of the FamilySearch.org Catalog (posted 6 November 2024).
The existing FamilySearch Catalog is at https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog.
There is also a FamilySearch News item dated 17 October 2024, What's New with the FamilySearch Catalog, which has information about the FamilySearch Catalog. That article notes that
The most noticeable change with this update is that the Catalog uses the newest FamilySearch place standards. Place standards provide a consistent experience for how place information is organized and presented. Standards must be updated regularly since place names around the world are changing.
It goes on to describe what the changes entail, and how the changes might affect our Catalog searches.
1) In the first article, James said: "Now, there is a new FamilySearch.org Catalog. See https://www.familysearch.org/en/library/our-catalogs."
That page says:
Either catalog can be searched, however it's best to use the new Library Catalog because it's continually being updated. The existing Catalog on FamilySearch.org was last updated September 2022.
Looking for a microfilm or microfiche?
Either catalog can be searched, however it's best to use the existing FamilySearch.org Catalog because it includes access to many of the microfilms and microfiche physically located in either the FamilySearch Library or the FamilySearch Archives, along with links to their digital images, if accessible digitally.
2) The link to "Access the New Catalog" is https://libcat.familysearch.org/?browseCategory=familysearch_new_books which takes you to the New Books page.
There is a Search field at the top of that screen. On the screen above, I input "Albany County, New York" into the search field and clicked on "Subject" in the Keyword field, kept "in Library Catalog" next to the Keyword field, and clicked on the "Search" button on the far right. The result was:
There were five items listed, all from microfilm and microfiche.
I know that the "Old" Catalog had many more entries for Albany County, New York. So I clicked on the field with "In Library Catalog" and saw more entries in the dropdown menu, and selected "in Library Website." I clicked "Search" again and saw:
The results show 782 "All Results," of which 703 are "Available at the FamilySearch Library" and 350 are "Available Online." Here is the list for "Available at the FamilySearch Library":
On the left side of the screen is an opportunity to "Narrow Your Results."
The database entries on the list have links to "Microfilm" and "Online Content." For the first item on the list above, the "Online Content" link takes me to the search page for the "United States, New York Land Records, 1630-1975" database on FamilySearch.
The Results page has 40 entries at most, so the user needs to click "Next" to see them all (20 pages for the search above).
4) This "New Catalog" system is much different from the "Old Catalog" system. The search results are different also. Note that the results for a locality are NOT in alphabetical subject order. I'm sure there are many other differences!!
5) I anticipate that, at some time in the maybe not-too-distant future, that the "Old Catalog" will be retired and the "New Catalog" will be the only option that researchers have to find the "needles in the FamilySearch Catalog" haystack.
We all need to stay tuned to this "New Catalog" way to do things.
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2 comments:
If the new catalog format remains the same as today, it will not be as useful as the old catalog. It just seems it outputs items randomly just like the new Images section on the website. Maybe they think with AI search feature, we won't need to look in a catalog. This is so backward.
As a librarian, I'm unimpressed by the New catalogue - not nearly as user-friendly. And being accessible is the most important aspect of any online catalogue. Hopefully they tweak it - until then, I'll continue using the old one.
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