Arizona’s State Library Moves 20,000 Volume Genealogical To New Location With Plans to Digitize

From The Daily Courier (Prescott, AZ):

The Arizona State Library has moved its 20,000 volume genealogical collection out of the historic Phoenix capitol so as to better utilize the space that was getting little traffic over the last few years.
Library officials assure the collection has not been lost, or destroyed. Rather it was relocated to the nearby Polly Rosenbaum Archives and History Building on West Madison Street.
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Plans are now underway to get these collections, particularly the rarest ones, digitized so they can be searchable online.
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[State Library Deputy Director Ted] Hale said. The financial resources will be reallocated to creating digital archive and fiscal issues repository, a move Hale said will make all of these materials more, rather than, less publicly accessible.
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State Library Digital Content Administrator Laura Stone has met with genealogists from across the state to assure materials unique to Arizona are properly preserved. In the new facility, she said, these records will actually get better physical care.
State genealogists are fearful of what this move may mean for certain records. But Hale and Stone said key records will not be discarded.

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Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Digital Collections, Digital Preservation, Libraries, News, Open Access