24 April 2010

Where have all the databases gone?

No matter how awkward a website if you use it often enough you get to know your way around. That's been true with the old LAC website, and perhaps you're feeling lost with the change LAC implemented earlier in the week which I blogged at http://anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.com/2010/04/lacs-new-look.html.

The change has made finding some resources easier. This address link from my front page to census records.

But others seem to be less available, or at least not where you may be used to finding them. If that's the case then from the main page click "Discover more...", then “Discover the Collection” and then "Databases". you'll find an alphabetical list from Aboriginal Documentary Heritage to Ward Chipman, Muster Master's Office (1777-1785).

You may have had a similar problem with databases at Ancestry.com. I thought I had a disappearing database problem at the site, but then learned how to use the card catalog and found it again.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a convention used by all database rich genealogical, and other, websites so we don't have to use a different approach at each site.

Thanks to Lesley Anderson for the tip and Old Census Scribe for pointing out a bad link.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Overall, the redesign of the front page is quite good, especially with the placement of resources.

More troubling is the idea that someone at LAC thinks that Daniel Caron's biography is the most important link in the navigation menu. Have you ever seen a govt site where the deputy minister's bio is that prominent? Yikes!