FRANKLINTON - Today's libraries are taking every opportunity to use technology in order to provide more services for library users. And library officials say the Washington Parish library is among the leaders.

Employees at the local library are utilizing today's modern technology to spearhead an aggressive genealogy indexing project that will revolutionize the way people search for historical records in Washington Parish.

Additionally, the library has begun offering wireless Internet service to patrons in Bogalusa and Franklinton, according to Gabriel Morley, library director.

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"We are currently looking at everything we do to better understand how we might improve services while cutting costs," Morley said. "Our goal is to offer more, for less. One way we're doing this is through an extensive genealogy project headed up by Bonnie Branch."

Branch, a library staffer, had previously compiled hundreds of obituaries from local newspapers. Over the last several months, with help from a few other staff members, the library has been able to index all of the obituaries from the Era-Leader for the years 1896-1965. (The year 1949, however, is unavailable. No microfilmed records of the 1949 issues of the weekly newspaper can be located.)

"The index is an alphabetical list of names culled from every back issue of the Era-Leader," Morley said. "We're so excited about being able to provide a quick reference index of names to patrons all over the world. Now, instead of having to get microfilm and go paper-by-paper and week-by-week, individuals can simply search our index, find a name and go right to that issue of the newspaper."

The index is available on the library's Web page at www.wplib.org under the "Genealogy" link.

The Era-Leader obituary information is indexed as a Word document and may be searched utilizing the 'FIND' function of the program.

"We're not planning to stop here," Morley said. "We are simultaneously working on an obituary index and major historical events index compiled from back issues of The Daily News, too."

As the wave of technology continues its sweep across the world, the two main branches of the library in Bogalusa and Franklinton are now offering wireless Internet service.

Several individuals have already taken advantage of the free service, which has been operational for a few months.

"Space is an issue in our two main libraries," Morley said. "When the buildings in Bogalusa and Franklinton were constructed in the sixties, no one could have anticipated the technology explosion that has occurred over the last decade. The library has always been a technology leader in Washington Parish, so when we had the opportunity to expand our public Internet access capabilities by going wireless, we charged ahead."