Verifying RINCs – Family Histories and other Genealogy Titles

One of my new responsibilities as the Information Services Lead Librarian is looking over RINCs that are classified as REF – most often these are family histories or other genealogy titles.

This week for some reason there were a lot of these requests – maybe as the weather worsens people are turning to their winter activities, including hours of genealogy research.  As I worked through the list I did a Google search for each title.  I found the full text of several of them online from sites like HathiTrust or the Internet Archive.  Other sources may have these titles as well.

I highly recommend a Google search as part of the verification process, even though it’s not specifically called out on the verification form.  In some instances I added the author’s last name to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, and that  brought up a result that wasn’t there in the first search.

So many of these books have been digitized in the last few years.  Providing our customers with the link to the digital item lets them access the book immediately, often saving 8-10 weeks of waiting for the physical copy.

 

WA State Supreme Court strikes down death penalty

Today Washington’s state Supreme Court unanimously ruled that capital punishment is unconstitutional in Washington state.  Washington becomes the 20th state in the union without the death penalty.  The eight prisoners currently on death-row will have their sentences changed to life in prison.

According to the opinion of five justices, the “death penalty is invalid because it is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner.”

Governer Jay Inslee’s statement on the ruling.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s statement on the ruling.

Everything you always wanted to know about Snopes

Snopes is one of our favorite tools for verifying and debunking information.  The Seattle Times has a great article today:

Snopes, the country’s most popular hoax-debunking site, is run by its founder out of a 97-year-old house in Tacoma. And is it ever busy, with 47 of its “Hot 50” posts having something to do with politics. Did Starbucks put President Trump’s photo on its floor? Is Bill Gates a bad tipper? Here’s a sampling of the truth-squaded rumors you’ll find there.