Research
Centre
from Colin Brown,
Caversham, Reading
As a library assistant at the Centre I am
often surprised at the way members and visitors
restrict themselves to what is on computers and
to the published 1851 census material available
for the rest of the country. Seldom do people
look into the library proper.
There are four books of maps for London,
showing almost all the houses in all the streets
at four different periods in the nineteenth
century. There is a set of fiche of almost all
the parish registers of Surrey from the earliest
date to 1850 There is a book for Lancashire
giving details of what parish registers exist,
where they are and the dates they cover,
including those of Liverpool and Manchester.
Few people with Wiltshire interests can fail
to find something relating to their families in
the large books on the bottom shelf under
Wiltshire. The Berkshire Poor Law books make
fascinating reading in their own right, but if
you have interests in Berkshire or in the
adjoining counties it is unlikely there will be
nothing of interest. And lots more.
However, how often do visitors even glance at
all this material? The answer must be seldom. A
lecturer told me: 'If it's not on computer most
people don't want to know'. It's a great pity,
isn't it?
from Bob Brock, Slough
I was interested in the letter from Sue Hedges
in the last Berkshire Family Historian, and in
the Chairman's column. I think there's a link
here. I have to admit that, despite thinking
about it a few times, I've never yet visited the
Research Centre. As a full-time worker, mostly
commuting to London during the week, the only
time I have for research is in the late evenings
or the very occasional weekend. Unfortunately
this rules out most times the Research Centre is
open, so that's one resource I've yet to use. The
one time I did think I might be able to pop in
was when the rest of the family was shopping in
Reading one Saturday, but of course Saturdays are
closed days, so that was a non-starter. As a
consequence of the limited research time I have
available, I tend to do most of my research from
the comfort of home - using PC and Internet - the
main attraction being that I can do so when I
have the odd half hour to spare. This brings me
to Chad's point - PCs are not that good at
reading microfiche, so publications in that form
are largely useless to me. I've been carrying
round a members' interests fiche with me for two
years now without having been near a fiche reader.
However, publication on CD-Rom or even on a paid-for
website would be a boon. I realise that my
situation is different to that of a lot of
researchers, who may have more time available, or
not be as comfortable with computing resources as
I am, but I hope these notes may help explain why
at least one member has not yet used the many
valuable facilities at the Research Centre.
