Substantial collections are maintained for the United States. Every state is represented in the 587,000 rolls of microfilm, including 106,000 rolls of federal records. These records come from more than 2,500 county courthouses and other archives and repositories. The 35,000 rolls for Canada include almost all the Quebec church records and many civil records from Ontario and other provinces. These include published family histories, local histories, indexes, periodicals, and other research aids.
Most books are available for immediate use.
A few books are kept in a storage area and can be retrieved by library attendants within three hours. Library books cannot be circulated to family history centers, but microfilm or microfiche copies of the books, if available, may be circulated. Most centers also have small collections of reference books. The library also has substantial collections for the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, continental Europe and Latin America. Partial collections exist for China, Japan, Korea, India, Indonesia and several Pacific islands.