The Foley Public Library in Alabama is renaming its History and Genealogy Division after years of visitors getting confused.
Per a City of Foley press release, the new name of the department is The Cultural and Heritage Collection. The old name had become “confusing” according to the head of the collection Paul Leonard. The department can help people know more about their family tree and its history, but the “genealogy” division had confused visitors.
“Genealogy implies that we are just genealogists, and you could come and we would do your family tree for you.” Leonard said. “We are certainly happy to assist with that, but we don’t just do that. It was a narrow name for the department.”
The department also deals in history. There is a large part of the collection available for people to know more about Foley. Their collection includes records, newspapers, photographs and books for anyone who is interested in the history of Foley. In addition to digital records, the department houses over 13,500 physical copies.
“Included in that we have a Heritage Series of books that were published over a course of years. There’s one for every county that was assembled where people contributed stuff about their families to it.” Leonard said. “We also have family history files and then also files on research, files on facilities or structures of communities within the county. It’s a broad topic of things that people have come in and asked about over the years.”
“Individuals may come in and say, ‘I bought this building. What did it used to look like? What was it before then?’ That’s going to be an ongoing, probably never ending process, because as things come up or we come across them, we add to it,” Leonard said.
The files and research at the library are extensive but also constantly growing.New photos of purchased buildings can be brought in for scanning. The library owns museum grade scanners that are open and available for the public to use.The Library also has readers which can be used to access military records received in Microfiche.