Books From Beyond... MGC

December 14, 2010

While researching at the Midwest Genealogy Center, have you ever found that we did not have a certain book on your family? There is a way you can still get it (for free!), and it is called WorldCat, which stands for World Catalog. To get there from the MCPL homepage, just click on Catalog at the top of the webpage and then click on the link provided: "Request materials the library does not own through WorldCat."  Once inside Worldcat, you can search for books worldwide.

As an example search, you can type in "McKinley family." This will bring up a list of books. Next to the very first book, it says "Mid-Continent Public Library." That means that MCPL owns that book. But if you find a book that doesn’t list MCPL, then you can request to have it sent to your MCPL home branch. You just click on the book of interest, then click the "ILL" button, and fill in your information. This is a wonderful free service that MCPL offers to our patrons, but many people don’t know it exists. And now you know!

Andrew M.
Midwest Genealogy Center