For your information,
> Microfilm data in LDS canyon vaults to go online
>
> By Carrie A. Moore
> Deseret Morning News
> Ever wonder what's inside those secured
> vaults, owned by the LDS Church, positioned high
> inside the granite walls of Little Cottonwood
> Canyon?
> The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
> Saints is working toward allowing anyone with
> Internet access to learn more than they've ever
> known before about the information contained on 2
> million-plus rolls of microfilm housed there.
> Currently, the church is compiling searchable
> indexes to that information and will eventually make
> it available for free through an automated database
> on the Internet.
> The church excavated the vaults containing
> those records on property it purchased in the 1960s,
> providing a safe repository during the height of the
> Cold War for birth, marriage, death and census
> information it considers essential for the salvation
> of mankind after death. Now church leaders seek to
> make the information more readily available to the
> world.
> "The goal is to create (Internet-accessible)
> indexes to all the films we have in the vault.
> That's a long-term process and that's a lot of
> films," according to Paul Nauta, manager of public
> affairs for church's FamilySearch.org Web site.
> "We've not announced when people will begin to start
> seeing" the indexes.
>
> Those attending the annual Federation of
> Genealogical Societies' conference this week at the
> Salt Palace will get a "sneak preview" of the
> church's plans. As the project progresses over time,
> indexes to records from 110 nations previously
> stored on microfilm will become accessible to
> virtually anyone, anywhere, through the Internet via
> the touch of a few keystrokes.
> "We're showing people how we'll be creating
> indexes from those films. Sometime in the future
> we'll ask people to help us create the indexes and
> make them publicly available, and little by little
> we'll start to index the films from the vault like
> we did with the 1880 (U.S.) Census.
> "The challenge now is it takes a lot of people
> and a lot of time" to create such an index.
> "Currently, you have to look at images on paper or
> burn them on a CD and distribute those to index the
