I inherited EVERY book about Cajuns that has ever been published. I need help to give this treasure to all of you.

Question

I have a tiny problem. I inherited EVERY source book for Cajuns that has ever been published. Including the Reverend Hebert Series and the Acadians in Exile...plus about 300 publications from assorted clubs and too many other books to name. Every one of the books are out of print, The are beautiful on my bookshelf but I would like to share. HOW??? I am not that savvy about how to put mass information to the web. I so appreciate all the information this site has offered to me for free and I want to pay back. Could someone give me some suggestions. I am not exaggerating when I said MASS information. I want to download the books not donate them.

Comments

By law you cannot copy & post anything published after 1923 (I think that is the date) except in some cases where the author has given permission.  Best thing to do is contact a copyright lawyer..

Make sure your collection is cared for after you die, best  to an archives or library.

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Hello Ruth,

How lucky can you get.  I would give my eye teeth for those books and records.  I hope you can find a legal way to share with the rest of WikiTreeers.  There must be a wealth of information within the covers.m  If you legally can not include them in WikiTree maybe you can let it be known that you will be willing to answer questions from Wiki Genealogists.

Good luck,

Micheline Gadbois MacDonald

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Many descendants of French Canadians would be interested in your books.  Please keep us informed of your progress.

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many decendents   that I know are in that information. I did get help from a lady who worked with Father Hebert But lost contact with her. I would love to get information from your books. but not sure how that can be done . would love to hear more from you .thanks for willing to share that information with others . that is so kind of you.  

                                                          Martha

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The Louisiana state archives in Baton Rouge, LA would be a great place to eventually house them permanently. I would give them a call and ask them for a suggestion. Here is the archives and processing #

Acquisitions and Processing
225.922.1218

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Ruth please PM me... I would like to know where you are located. Your name sounds VERY familiar, i would LOVE to help transfer info for you!

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Actually "it depends"... Rights clearance is always good practice regardless.

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Hi Ruth Plaisance,

Would you happen to have a book that is out of print called "The Toups Clan and How It All Began" by Neil J Toups published in 1969. I have a scanned copy of the book but there are many pages that are unreadable. I have been looking for someone that owns an original copy. It seems to be really hard to come by probably because it was a small publication.

Answer 1

Très agréable :-) 

https://www.state.lib.la.us/

https://library.louisiana.edu/about-us/hours-directions/cajun-connection

https://www.loc.gov/rr/genealogy/bib_guid/states/la/la.html

JPVIV :)

 

Answer 2

If you find a way to provide them, I would be willing to help scan them.

Answer 3

Ruth - what a great impulse, and thanks for the offer to share the information. The best thing, it seems, would be for people to work on transferring the information contained in those books to wikitree, with citations, etc. Do you live in an area where there might be high school or college students who would be willing to take this on as a research project? If you could recruit folks to work on this - and if you live in Louisiana, there might be some add'l support from local or state organizations - it would be fantastic.

While I agree that it would be great to donate them at some point to an institution, you've said you don't want to do that now, and it doesn't really serve the purpose you'd like - a library will stick them on a shelf or in a reference room somewhere and is unlikely to disseminate it. But perhaps if you could promise a future donation to a library, you could extract a commitment from the library to put together the group of interns to help get the info into the internet.

Best of luck, and thanks again.

Gary

Answer 4

Try contacting Project Gutenberg.  They are very familiar with what can and can't be scanned and made available on the Internet and might be interested in helping you get the information into an electronic form.  

I used to be one of their volunteer copyright lawyers.  They are very careful to make sure what they do is within the copyright law.  So you could be comfortable that what they would help you with would not violate copyright law.

Then for the rest, go with finding local volunteers to help create profiles that use the information.

Answer 5

As James LaLone said, anything published before 1923 in the USA is out of copyright. After 1923 things get complicated because it depends on the year published and whether the copyright was registered and possibly renewed. 1978 and later everything is copyright protected unless the author explicitly put the material in the public domain. The copyright lasts the lifetime of the author plus 70 years. For those you would need the permission of the author. The in-between  years (1923-1977) can require some digging around to verify copyright status.

There are a couple of other places that digitize genealogically relevant material. archive.org and hathitrust.org

You might not want to donate them now, but you should explore the options so you can leave them somewhere safe in your will.

Answer 6

Hi - Father Hebert was a prodigious researcher! His many volumes are offered for sale still online - but only in hard copy. Also, there were several separate works produced by assisting researchers who have corrected mistakes in the original works or have produced meaningful indices across the works for better searching/reference. These are important works because Father Hebert read French well and had direct access to most of the handwritten document archives across the diocease (many parishes). Maps of the original settlements in present-day Canada would be helpful too. Some of these works might already be available online, especially the volumes he completed before 1978. But you would be right to check in with one of the groups others mention before distributing anything in electronic format (scanning or transcribed documents).  Hope this helps!

Answer 7

Ruth, I encourage you to draft a list of the books in your collection and post that list to a freespace page here on WikiTree. The more you annotate the list with what's in the book, the better; this would help readers/researchers know what you have, and perhaps make lookup requests (if you're willing to do that).

Answer 8

Ruth, even just the Acadians in Exile would be such a great book to access.  It's used as a source on so many Acadian profiles.  The Acadian and Louisiana Family Projects have lists of Reliable Sources.  If you make a freespace page, could we link to it?  Would you be willing to do lookups in these sources  - people rarely ask but it would be nice to have that option if we have a link.  Thank you.

Answer 9

Here is a list of ALL the public libraries that hold a copy----perhaps you can borrow it through your OWN local library using Interlibrary loan---

• Institution name: St. Mary's University Blume Library   Louis J. Blume Library

• Houston Public Library Central Library

• ULL Edith Garland Dupre Library Edith Garland Dupré Library

• Lafayette Public Library

• State Library of Louisiana

• Nicholls State University, Ellender Ellender Memorial Library

• Jefferson Parish Library

• New Orleans Public Library

• Columbus Metropolitan Library

• Detroit Public Library

Answer 10

What a gold mine you have!  Please consider donating your collection to a library in a parish that does not have a collection of this type.  I live in Livingston Parish and their libraries only contain info on families native to this parish.  To do any research on my Acadian or French ancestors west of the Mississippi, I have to go into Baton Rouge.