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Message:: [QUOTE="Figtree3, post: 2885080, member: 33"]It depends... the libraries' print copies of those are often in special collections where they will not circulate. If somebody lives near the library or historical society they could go in. Pre-COVID, they might also have had the librarian look something up for them and send photocopies. These old books often have no indexes, though, or the indexes are inadequate. With COVID, many librarians are working from home so wouldn't easily be able to look at the book on behalf of a caller. And I imagine that many historical societies are not open to the public at present. Many of these kinds of books are available through archive.org, Google Books, HathiTrust, or all three. So for a person who just needs to look up a limited amount of information, or to check for a name, those will do. I think the audience for buying the print versions right now might be limited, but still viable, as [USER=8267]@2manybooks[/USER] mentioned. For example, I would be interested in buying one of these if I knew there were ancestors who lived in the area during the historical time covered by the book. Or, if somehow my ancestors were frequently mentioned in the book. (Haven't found many like that, though!) Possibly also people might be interested if they live in the area covered by the book and have long ancestral lines there, or just want to read a history of the area.[/QUOTE]