Given libraries and other FS facilities are closed, please open the records so we may continue to wo

LegacyUser

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: Restrictions on access to records are due to contracts between the record owner and FS. If FS opened up access without the permission of the record owner, it would be illegal and would seriously diminish the trust between FS and archives and the genealogy sector. The Internet Archive did this with an "Emergency Library" in March and immediately faced criticism and legal consequences for copyright violation from authors and artists.

Ancestry.com managed to negotiate a temporary contract allowing free access to some of their records (specifically, those from the US National Archives), but FS has not managed to do this. Due to travel restrictions and working from home, it may not have been possible.

I do think that if this situation persists, FS will need to consider alternatives to restricting records to FHCs and/or Affiliate Libraries, such as having caps on the number of users who can view records at any one time, to satisfy record owners who want to keep the number of people viewing their records on FS as low as possible.