Internet Beat

Gloria R. Rivera

Local history online book is great educational tool

As school has started and there might be parents and teachers who would like to help youngsters find information about the History of Seguin, I would like to commend to you, the book "Under the Live Oak Tree, a History of Seguin" by E.John Gesick Jr., in its online version.

The online version has the entire text of the printed book, and also the photographs in the book. It includes the index, through a search engine. The book is an excellent resource in local history. It is a great educational tool specially because of the photographs and their appeal to children.

There are three size versions of the photographs, in thumbnail, medium and large. You can choose whichever size, according to whether you are just browsing or if you are interested in some detail in the photographs.

The printed and the web version of the book complement one another. The search engine provided in the Index section is the main difference between the printed and the web versions of the book.

I would like to mention some background about the book itself, about the author John Gesick, and about the future of the online version.

The book is written in an informal style, like family storytelling under a live oak tree, with universal appeal to all ages, whether children, parents or grandparents. The dedicatory of the book reads: " Dedicated to the Citizens of Seguin, past, present, future."

The content of the book is authoritative, as it is written by well known local historian E. John Gesick, Jr. He is Instructor in the Department of History and Geography at Texas Lutheran University. He has written two books, contributed essays to The New Handbook of Texas, and has written a number of articles in academic publications. He is chairman of the Guadalupe County Historical Commission and serves in the Board of Directors of the Heritage Museum in Seguin.

The printed version of the book was first printed in 1988 as a courtesy of Seguin State Bank and Trust Company. The second printing took place in 1995. The publisher was Tommy Brown Printing in Seguin.

The online version, a courtesy of C. Thomas Koch whose ancestors are from Seguin, was premiered in May of 2000 at a gala event by the Heritage Museum. The online version captures the intended relaxed storytelling mood. The graphic art was done by local artist Jerry Weers, and I did the web design.

Needless to say, the joy I experienced in this endeavor was great. I delighted in learning much about the history of Seguin, and I specially delighted in the intellectual enrichment in the communication with John Gesick. Since John Gesick has mastered the teaching art, his communications were always full of most interesting ideas. I feel like I learned a great deal.

The online version of the book is intended to be a starting point and foundation on which to build and add to the information mentioned in the book. The vision of C. Thomas Koch, sponsor of the online version, is to amplify and supplement the content of the book, with hyperlinks to information such as genealogies, history of the infrastructure, history of the community, etc, etc.

The online version of the book has been accessed from people around the world and around the country. I receive the reports of country of origin of visits. It is truly amazing to know that people around the globe are interested and consistently visit the book at http://www.seguin.net/heritage/gesicktree

Many people have used the search engine provided. I receive the reports of the use of the search engine, and I can tell that many people have looked up and found their family and other information contained in the book. The search engine includes information about the captions in the photographs. The reports also show that not all searches are successful.

There are some pointers I would like to mention, so that whenever you use the search engine, you can be successful in your search.

A) If you are looking for entries listed in the printed index of the book, use the search forms listed in alphabetical order. This guarantees absolute success and accuracy. All the entries have been throughly tested and approved for accuracy. Actually, for all the words in the drop-down menus, I conducted over 1600 tests to ensure accuracy of the results. Mr. Gesick approved the accuracy of the results.

B) When you open the drop-down menus contained in any of the search forms, you can tell that the words in the index are not exactly the words in the index of the book. The reason for the difference is as follows: the index in the book is by topics, and the online index is the exact text that appears in the book.

B) If you are looking for words not listed in the index, you will need to use trial and error. The point to remember is that the search engine looks for the text exactly as it is in the text of the book. It does not substitute meanings nor topics. Using lower case, start your search with a single word. Do not search phrases that include "of" or "the" or you could get the list of all the chapters in the book, because all of them contain "of" and "the."

C) Once you know in which chapter or caption page the information is mentioned, follow the detailed instructions provided in the Index section. They might seem long to read, but I know that if you follow the steps, you will find the information you need.

As you can tell, the online version allows you to find any word exactly as contained in the text, including the captions of the 61 pictures included. You can find any word, regardless of whether or not it is listed in the Index.

Thus, it is possible to find information about uncommon topics and people who are not the most prominent personages in the history of Seguin, -if the information is part of the book.

The book is posted at www.seguin.net/heritage/gesicktree The search engine in the Index section is posted at http://seguin.net/heritage/gesicktree/gesicktreeindex.html The 61 photographs start at http://seguin.net/heritage/gesicktree/gesicktreecaptions1.html

To contribute to the Internet Beat column, contact Gloria R. Rivera at webmaster@seguin.net