GENEALIB Archive

The GENEALIB mailing list was created in August 1996 by Drew Smith (at the time an instructor with the University of South Florida School of Library and Information Science, now the USF School of Information). The creation of the list was the result of a consultation at the 1996 annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies in Rochester, New York, between Smith and Curt Witcher, Manager of the Genealogy Center of the Allen County [Indiana] Public Library, and Pam Cooper, genealogy librarian at that time for the Indian River County Library in Vero Beach, Florida.

Since its creation, GENEALIB has been hosted continuously at the University of South Florida and administered by Drew Smith as a forum for those librarians who serve genealogists. During much of its existence, GENEALIB has been subscribed to by 800 to 1000 individuals, including genealogy librarians (predominantly at public libraries), archivists, genealogy product/service vendors, library science students, volunteers at genealogy/historical society libraries, and retired librarians, among others.

In late 1998, GENEALIB was moved from its original mailing list software to Mailman, but unfortunately, its original archive (1996 to 1998) was not preserved. In January 2021, the list was moved again, this time from Mailman to LISTSERV. In July 2025, the list was moved yet again, this time from LISTSERV to Microsoft Groups. The archives from late 1998 to June 2025 are preserved here.

Questions or comments regarding the GENEALIB mailing list and its archive can be directed to genealogy librarian Drew Smith (dsmith@usf.edu), Associate Librarian Emeritus at the USF Libraries. If you would like to be added to the GENEALIB Microsoft Group, contact Drew Smith.