4. The GenLib repository has no mechanism to find a particular book by either title or author. With a thousand volumes, finding a book in the very limited classification scheme  is seldom successful. One must guess in which of the categories the book may have been placed — a frustrating task when the book you are seeking may easily have been placed in a number of the supplied categories. This book, for example, could well be filed in any of these categories: 
1. History: United States (Civil War) 
2. People: Surnames (Durfee) People: 
3. Biographies (Durfee, Thomas) 
4. Records: Bible Collections 
5. Records: Court and Civil Proceedings 
6. Places: United States (CT, RI or VT)
Using the supplied search mechanism will find the citations to the book you seek as well as the book itself. 

This book
 

24Jan1999

Note that the reference number" in the example, "R100706", is of little use as there is no way to use that to find the book, so it can hardly be called an "access number".

 

5. Few books have had the images from the original scanned in (advertising hype notwithstanding). Of those that have been included, problems of quality abound, including fuzzy images and needlessly rotated images. 

1. Titles: "Connecticut Society of the Colonial Danes of America". Danes? "  Silly, but it will cause searches to fail, and how many people have blindly copied it into their citations? (It should be "Dames", of course.)
2. Duplication: Books R100586 (1408) and R100917 (1701) are the same book! One has the title taken from the title page, the other from the spine.

same book

3. Keyword Index: is plagued by many misspellings. This study of possible ways of misspelling "family" is missing only "fambly" to make it complete.

1. Missing pages in the original volumes are not noted.  This book is missing pages 64-76 (names between Noland, Rosette and Scott, Eveline), with no explanation.
2. Keyword Index: The Keyword Index is much more useful than the Subject Index, but it is buried with no link provided from the GenLib home page. 
3. Subject Index: The Subject Index is of limited use for finding the many books which could logically be placed in a number of subject categories; Each book is place in only one category, with no consistency. So a specific book you seek could be found just about anywhere. 

Keyword Index
 

4. Pagination of many books do not match the originals, resulting in navigation and citation problems.  About 1/3 of the books have incorrect page numbers. 
5. Subject Index: Numerous books are placed in the wrong  category outright. Examples:
1. Several books about Wyoming county, PA, are misfiled under the state Wyoming.
2. The book "The Descendants of Adam Mott" is filed in "Top : Subjects : People : Surnames : A" rather than "M"
3. The book "Founders of Old Dunstable" is filed under "Surnames : S" (the author's name is Stearnes) rather than "Places : Massachusetts"
4. "The Benson Family Records" is filed among the "R" surnames.
5. Virkus's well known "Abridged Compendium" is found among the "V" surnames.
6. "RYCKEN, HENDRICK, 1663, SUYDAM FAMILY" erroneously filed under the "R" surnames, when it principally concerns the Suydam family.
6. Subject Index: No attempt is made to alphabetize the books listed within subject categories. This is especially important within the Surname lists.

7. Subject Index: Spurious categories. One wonders how "Record : Marriage Records" (one book) is different from "Records : Marriage" (764 books).