Comments on the St. Louis Public Library Obituary Index website

It's now been over a month since I received the "official" response from the Library to "Please give it some time".

Turns out that even now that the ugly fact is out they still aren't going to update their website. At least not the one we all use. You see, they have two websites.

For many years we have looked to http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/libsrc/obit.htm for their posted obit indices. In the format they adopted on this website we have the ability to view entire portions of any year of obit indices. The last update made to this website was March of 2006. There is no notice on this website that they have abandoned it, or a link for another website.

A few years ago they decided to switch to a more "modern" looking web design at http://www.slpl.org/slpl/gateways/article240117800.asp You would expect that this is the website that they have maintained with the current obit listings, but you'd be wrong. Until of course about a month ago when it was brought to their attention that even the new website had no obit updates since March of 2006. Now, a few more years have been added.

Here's a summary of the confusion:

Here's what is on the "New Website"
1880 - 1930
1942 - 1945
1960 - 1963
1992 - 2001

This website is still missing 1975-1976, 2002-2009


Here's what is on the "Old Website"
1880 - 1927
1942 - 1945
1992 - 2005
This website is still missing 1928-1930, 1960-1963, 1975-1976, 2006-2009. In other words, this website (the one most of us still use) has still not been updated in more than three years. BTW, there is nothing on that website that says that, or even to give a link to the other website.


Now the new website has actually been updated, but still not up-to-date with the data that's been available for the past three years. Currently, this obituary index contains names from the St. Louis Post Dispatch for the years 1880-1930, 1942-1945, 1960-1963, and 1992-2001.

So, for the forseeable future, we will have to search both websites.

To give you a true appreciation of this lunacy try doing a search from my "Genealogy in St. Louis" website. I've modified the search to look at both the old and new websites. Then go to the "new" website and use the search they provide. You get three different results. For example, a search of "Lossos" yields the following results:

Old website via "Genealogy in St. Louis" Google search: Thirteen hits
New website via "Genealogy in St. Louis" Google search:Two hits
New website via their own search engine: Nine hits