LOGAN -- The City Library plans to put the 80,000-piece Everton Collection on public display next month.

The collection of Everton Publishing Co. was one of the largest privately held genealogical archives in the country when the city acquired it two years ago.

Everton got its start in 1947, publishing a bimonthly genealogy magazine, Everton's Genealogical Helper, and editions of the Handybook for Genealogists. The company, now under new ownership, continues that publishing tradition after donating its collection to Logan City Library.

The collection boasts information about people and places across the country -- family histories, family tree charts, manuscripts, books, a half-century of Genealogical Helper issues, old maps and county atlases.

"I've never seen it, but from what I understand it is a great deal of random stuff that would be difficult to find in other places -- one more good resource," Dick Eastman, a Massachusetts software consultant who publishes an online newsletter on genealogy, said Friday.

Logan Library Director Ronald Jenkins said he plans to open the collection to the public by Tuesday, using an empty courtroom at the city's Justice Building.

City leaders, worried about the cost of maintaining an exhibit, voted twice against hiring a staffer to catalog the works and oversee daily operations.

But the City Council finally agreed to open the collection on a trial basis for a year, and Jenkins hired Jason Cornelius, who is working on a master's degree from Emporia (Kan.) State University in library sciences.

"Everybody is willing to give it a shot," Mayor Randy Watts said. "The only way we're really going to know how important it is to the citizens is to open it up and give it a year and watch how much activity occurs with the collection."

Officials are looking for volunteers to assist with clerical work and help customers wade through a collection just now being organized.

"The collection is really one of a kind," Cornelius said. "You really don't know what's in here until you start digging."

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D4.