Genealogical Publishing Company, often abbreviated as “GPC,” has long been a major provider of genealogy and local history books. I suspect the company is the largest publisher of these books in North America although I don’t have any statistics to prove that belief. All I can say is that I have purchased many books from GPC over the years to help in my genealogy research efforts. Of course, GPC has had a web site at genealogical.com for years that has offered online ordering of books. Now GPC has added a new section to the web site: one that is dedicated to genealogy and local history e-books.
library.genealogical.com offers not only an online catalog and very fast ordering; it also offers immediate delivery of ebooks. You no longer need to wait for days for the mailman to deliver a printed book. There are almost 800 titles on the site now and most of them are available as e-books.
With the new online ebook catalog, you can:
Order a book online and then read it immediately on your Kindle, iPad, Android tablet, or web browser within seconds. Of course, you can also save the book and refer to it again and again for years to come.
If you do not have an ebook reader, a tablet computer, or a smartphone with which to read the ebook, you can (optionally) use any computer to open a web browser and read the newly-purchased on-screen in your web browser. Even with the web browser version, you can also save the book and refer to it again and again for years to come.
You can review pages in a book before ordering it. This allows you to look inside the book to make sure it is what you want BEFORE YOU ORDER!
You can also search within the text of a book before ordering.
The new ebook online catalog offers one-click ordering. You can register with your Google account, your Facebook account, or you can create a new account on library.genealogical.com by using your email address and a password that you create.
I suspect the new web online service from GPC will be valuable to many genealogists. If you are interested, I might suggest you first go to library.genealogical.com and experiment a bit by clicking on any or all of the thumbnail images there. That will show the cover and the first few pages of each book, giving you a “taste” of each book before you decide whether or not to order it.
You can access the “Suggestions and Favorites” at library.genealogical.com without registering. You can also Search the Catalogue from the same page.
Here is a document written by the folks at Genealogical Publishing Company describing several scenarios in which the new web site ebook catalog may meet your needs. You might also notice the last two sentences:
“Just so you know, we will continue to produce good-old-fashioned books. In the not too distant future, however, you will have your choice of print or electronic every time.”
MOBILE GENEALOGY
Consider the following scenarios
1. You are working on your genealogy at a local courthouse or archives. You discover a potential ancestor in the sources but need to check that finding against a reference in the public library twenty miles away. You can’t get there for at least a week because of your other obligations . . .
2. You just opened up your winter home in Arizona. (As many as 25% of genealogists are snowbirds.) You have an excellent collection of New England genealogy books at your home in Minnesota, but they won’t do you much good in Arizona, where you are hoping to make progress on your Cabot line . . . .
3. You are babysitting for Grandson Billy, who takes a nice long nap every afternoon. You brought your laptop to work on your German genealogy, but you need the web addresses from Angus Baxter’s In Search of Your German Roots to find those sites . . . .
Each of these illustrations points to the frustration genealogists encounter when they don’t have access to their most trusted reference books. Fortunately, we have rectified this problem by launching a new kind of eBook store made specifically for genealogists–a site that will allow researchers to keep many of their reference books with them at all times, without adding a single ounce to their suitcase, briefcase, or trunk.
Our new site, library.genealogical.com, offers eBook editions of nearly 800 of our best titles, with more titles being added throughout the year. Mobility is just one of the benefits of our genealogy eBooks. All of our eBooks are priced at least 30% below their print counterparts, and there are no shipping costs associated with eBook delivery. That means that you will save from $5.50 to $7.50 on each eBook you order.
At library.genealogical.com, you can
Search for books by locality, subject, time period, and other categories.
Look inside the book to view pages from the publication and search within the text.
Buy the book easily with just one click, registering with Google, Facebook, or your e-mail.
Read the book instantly on our site or download it to the eReader of your choice.
Cut and paste content directly from the book to your genealogical project, without having to retype the information.
We encourage you to visit library.genealogical.com, play around with its features, and send us with your feedback. Just so you know, we will continue to produce good-old-fashioned books. In the not too distant future, however, you will have your choice of print or electronic every time.
Filed under: Books
