Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Obituary Index Project: A Collaborative Gateway To Local History, Gerald F. Patout Jr.

The Southeastern Librarian

Genealogists and local historians are converging on libraries and information repositories in record numbers, armed with questions and determined to locate answers buried in the documentary annals of the past. This crusade is sometimes met with the same confounding and perplexing problems that challenge library genealogy and local history professionals - a proliferation of information resources, the questionable accuracy and validity of certain sources and the daunting and repetitive task of instructing end users in meaningful inquiry and research. In response to these changes, the New Orleans Public Library (NOPL) and The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC) are collaborating on …