Digital and Microfilm
As new items are digitized could the format be updated. I am a retired librarian from BYU-I where I helped with cataloging government documents and serials. I am 71 years old and maybe someone younger might understand that searching a specific local FamilySearch library can be confusing when they want a book (aka monograph) and not a microfilm. It is a pleasant surprise when the item has been digitized. I am helping inventory a local collection. Example: A brief account of the Skipwiths of Newbold, Metheringham, and Prestwould
Format: Books/Monographs/Book on Film
Physical: on 1 microfilm reel🐻
Comments
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Two facts for you: one, all microfilms in FS's holdings have been digitized, and two, the Catalog was last updated sometime in 2021.
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Completion of the project to digitize microfilm announced in 2021 - https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/familysearch-microfilm-collection-digitized
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Inside the catalog on family search (under the search tab) You can search all the holdings in the Family History Library. It can be hard to search without some knowledge on what you are looking for, but when you do, It will give you a screen that first has a box asking if you would like to add it to your print list. Below that, if it's been digitized, you will see red text something like this:
From what I can tell, these red links will sometimes take you to already digitized external sources.
If you scroll down further it will have "Film and Digital Notes:
underneath it shows what formats that have it in, ( microfilm, if it's digitized, if its been indexed etc.)
It will look something like this:
In this case, the cameral Icon means it has been digitized. A film roll would be in film, etc. You can hover over these icons with your mouse to see what they mean if you are unsure.
Does that answer your question?
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Some clarifications for Andrew's post.
- That kind of red "click here" link is not necessary to view online images. It's available when the images have been collected a particular way, and is in addition to the catalog's image viewer.
- Since all microfilms have been digitized, the film-reel icon no longer indicates anything about scanning status. It has been re-purposed to indicate "not available [to you] online". (No, "digitized" is not at all the same thing as "online".)
- The camera icon never really said anything about scanning status. ("Digitized" is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it to apply.) Instead, it means "available online", and you can access the catalog's image viewer for that film or image group by clicking the icon. (Before you do so, make sure to check the "Film" column: if it says "Item ...", you'll need to find the item number on the film. The camera link always takes you to the beginning of Item 1.)
- The catalog's icons may be out of date. As I said above, the catalog has not been updated in about two years now. In particular, there have been many new indexes published recently, so lack of the magnifying-glass icon doesn't necessarily mean "unindexed", any more. (You can check by copying the film number and putting it in the "Image Group Number..." field of Search - Records.)
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To emphasise Julia's point, the main issue here (if I have understood the original post correctly) is the out-of-date Catalog.
Will it ever be updated, or the promised new version appear any time soon? Until then, we are going to remain in the dark about the specifics of any new material added to the website. Newly added digitized (or index only) material is notified via the Blog, but the descriptions here are too vague to be of much use. Newly added images can be found in the "Images" section, but it requires a great deal of imagination to discover under which headings they have been added - hence to find them.
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