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Re: quality assessment of LDS microfilms



By quality, do you mean the technical aspects?  Type of polyester
base, etc.?   Or do you mean "quality" in terms of what is filmed?
I have worked with two volunteer crews of the LDS church.
Remember that these are church members who volunteer and
do receive training.   Both groups I worked with were husband-wife
teams.

The first group was fantastic.   They enjoyed the work, enjoyed
history, had fun and worked hard, too.    Since they seemed to be
filming only portions ("the genealogy part") of family papers, I had
to insist on including a target that said "The following is a portion
from the Acme Family Papers, etc."    Often times, I might have
a whole collection of scrapbooks, letters, photographs, and
other family materials and the only thing filmed was the one folder
marked "genealogical charts."

The second filming crew I had were good people, but I felt that
they had volunteered more as a service to the church than as
a vocation.  They did not appear interested in history, did not
read or look at the items they filmed, and I quickly discovered
that of the selected materials, they were skipping entirely any-
thing that was on newsprint (clippings, weddings, obituaries,
etc.).    When I asked about this, they said it was just too much
trouble to do newspaper clippings since they had to change
the density, focus, etc. for each clipping.  (The first couple had
done this continuously in order to film everything that had been
selected).

Thus while I have the greatest respect for the LDS church and
the genealogy work they do, I also have a healthy skepticism when
it comes to the quality (e.g. content) of what has been filmed.   I
always urge my researchers to check back to the source of the
materials to see what (1) items exist but were not put on film,
and (2) what new materials might be available since the filming
was done.    I don't know if LDS performs repeat visits, but I would
guess it has been close to ten years since they were here.

Dean

Dean DeBolt
University Librarian
Special Collections and West Florida Archives
John C. Pace Library
University of West Florida
11000 University Parkway
Pensacola, FL  32514-5750
Tele:  850-474-2213;   Fax:  850-474-3338

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