#AtoZChallenge - C is for Cemetery Transcriptions, CDs, Congresses and Cataloguing

There was a time when I used to look after the QFHS Bookshop and I always like to tell the story about how the Toowong Monumental Inscriptions boxes used to be stored at the foot of our matrimonial bed.  I think any marriage that can survive that can survive anything. Needless to say I have a VERY understanding partner.  

I still have the Toowong Monumental Inscriptions - but only one set now.  I have been surprised how many times I have had occasion to refer to them and look them up. Of course you don't even have to have books now.  You can just purchase the CD from QFHS - a CD takes up much less space shelf.  Libraries aren't just books.  They are CDs, DVDs, eResources- the whole shebang.

  

Family History Congresses - I have been to a few.  My first one was back in 1991 in Launceston.  That was just before I had children. The papers are called Our Heritage in History and were produced in a book.

My parents and I attended some of the talks at the Congress in Brisbane in 1994.  Those papers seem to be housed in a Lever Arch File - goodness knows why.  I didn't get to attend another Congress properly until the one in Canberra a couple of years ago and I'm looking forward to Sydney's next year.  

Congress papers can now be produced on USB or emailed as a PDF rather than or as well as being produced in hard copy.  As Carmel quite rightly pointed out in my first A-Z Blog post, the challenge then becomes keeping track of a digital library as well as a physical library and finding stuff.  I spent half an hour the other day looking for something I thought I had downloaded to my eReader when in fact I had downloaded to my old iPad.  Too many devices!  Carmel asked how I manage this - not very well obviously.  But there are tools out there which I will discuss further under O for Organisation.  What I should say at this point is that I do tend to rely on my Librarything account to tell me where stuff is physically so in future I need to remember to add digital holdings as well with a note saying where I have filed or shelved them digitally. You can search my collection too if you want.  Just go down the right hand side menu bar and look for the search bar labelled Condaw Library.

I don't put spine labels on my books at home and I am ashamed to say they are not very organised at all.  Things have grown like topsy and I sit in the corner of my living room.  It is my dream to have my own room for my family history and organise my books in a sensible fashion.  At the moment they tend to be grouped according to size and publication type and or subject.  So all the Unlock the Past books sit together.  All the tall books are together.  All the local histories are together. You get the idea.