Procedures/rules for re-opening a FHC post-Covid?

Evergreen · July 10, 2021

On June 10th I sent the following question to FS support:

"Our stake now has permission to reopen our Family History Centers.

From the perspective of the Family History Library are there any "rules, regulations, procedures" that we should follow?"

The only answer I got was silence/no response -- which raises the following two questions:

(1) are there any "official" rules/regulations/procedures ???

(2) why doesn't support@familysearch.org answer email questions?

faunt95 · July 11, 2021

Hi,

We are sorry you didn't hear back about reopening a family history center. Our email system was changed in June and we now answer questions in community.

We have a wonderful Community page for Family History Centers. It is "Family History Center Technical Support Community". On the FamilySearch page click on the Help icon (the question mark with a circle around it). Scroll down to Community and click on it. In the upper right hand corner of the Community page please click on Sign in. Then under "Featured Groups" click on "view all". Under the “Groups” column click on “All Groups”. Scroll down to Family History Center Technical Support (North America). This community is set up so you can access your email; monthly report and all the articles and tools about the family history centers. There are wonderful articles like "Resources for a new stake family history center consultant"; Guidance for keeping Dell equipment clean; Priesthood direction; discarding old equipment; signage etc. There are over 200 articles.

Line 231 has power points with the latest information from the support techs. There is a zoom meeting the 1st Thursday of each month for all Consultants, stake techs, family history leaders or anyone else who has a calling in family history.

On the Family History Center Tech Support community page there is also an Announcement section and a Discussion section where you can ask questions or search for questions that have already been asked.

FamilySearch does not have official rules or regulations to re-open a center. The article "Guidance for keeping Dell equipment clean" has information about which products to use to sanitize the computers. The article "Priesthood direction" has information about overseeing a family history center. There are articles about returning microfilm/microfiche and removing old cabinets.

Thank you for your service in the family history center.