A Conversation about the Church’s New Genealogical Library

In October, the Church’s new Genealogical Library opened its doors at its new location across from Temple Square in Salt Lake City. The beautiful five-level facility, one and a half blocks from the library’s previous home in the Church Office Building, evidences the Church’s commitment to assisting members in searching out their ancestors and helping redeem their dead. The Ensign recently spoke with David M. Mayfield, director of the Member Services Division of the Genealogical Department, about the new facility.

Q: How significant is this new building to the Church’s genealogy program?

A: Very significant. This building inaugurates a new era of genealogical research. The library has been specifically designed to accommodate new technology, including major computer systems that we are now developing. These new systems constitute the beginning of a major thrust to simplify genealogical research and thereby involve additional tens of thousands of members doing research on their own family lines.

Q: What are you able to do with the new facilities that you weren’t able to do before?

A: This is the first time in the library’s 91-year history that it has been housed in a building specifically designed for genealogical research. This facility has extraordinary flexibility. For example, although there are now five floors, the building has sufficient structural capacity and support facilities to accommodate three additional floors. These levels will be added in the future as growth dictates.

The building also has a compact underground storage area. This area, ingeniously designed with movable stacks to increase storage capacity, can hold 200,000 more rolls of microfilm and 70,000 more books than we could store previously. Up to now, people wanting to use these little-used materials have had to wait while the items were transferred from the Granite Mountain vault in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Q: Can you describe the new computer system?

A: It is called the Genealogical Information System. It will eventually allow patrons access to all our genealogical systems and data bases from any terminal in the library. One of the main components will be the Ancestral File, which will allow many users to trace their family back through several generations. We are now entering into the system the information from more than a million family group sheets and 150,000 pedigree charts which we have received from members since 1979. Although creating this system is a major technical challenge, it will be an invaluable aid to genealogists. The system will also include resource files, an on-line catalog, and a research guidance system. Prototypes will be completed by about mid-1986, with the finished programs available between one and five years later.

Q: What are some other features of the new library?

A: The building is well-equipped to provide patron instruction. There are classrooms on every floor, as well as video equipment and computer-assisted instruction in several locations. We have a seating capacity now of about 960, which is 200 more than previously. The new building also has controlled humidity, temperature, and lighting designed to protect the collection from deterioration. The collection consists of about 1.5 million rolls of microfilm and 170,000 books and manuscripts, containing an estimated 2 billion names.

Q: Do you expect that the new building and facilities will increase the number of patrons using the Church collection?

A: We average about 2,000 visits to the library each day, more than half a million per year, and we expect that number to increase, especially as the new computer system becomes available and awareness grows.

The Church is currently microfilming records in forty countries. This means the material we have is not compiled records, but original source material. It is often easier to do research here than in the countries the materials come from because of our location, our trained staff who speak the various languages, our equipment, and our instructional materials. Because of this, people come from all over the world to do research in our library. About 40 percent of the patrons are not LDS.

The main library is also the hub of a large Church genealogical library system which offers support to the 640 branch genealogical libraries located in 31 countries. These branch libraries received an estimated 1.4 million patron visits in 1985. We offer substantial support to these branch genealogical libraries. For example, this year we are distributing 300,000 rolls of microfilm, more than 7.5 million microfiche, and numerous instructional materials to these branch libraries.