Butler Area Public Library may look as through it is celebrating Halloween in January on Saturday.

The library at 218 N. McKean St. in Butler will hold a Grim Reaper party, serving cakes that look like coffins and chilling refreshments from 6 to 8 p.m. Guests are asked to wear funeral attire and to add something lighthearted to their costume, such as a shovel.

The party is to celebrate the library's new online obituary index, which so far contains 72,000 death records culled from Butler County newspapers from 1818 to 2000.

The computer lab will be open and visitors may check out the obituary index, which has been in the works for years.

Slippery Rock University's School of Computer Science put the records online for the library's genealogy department with the help of volunteers who gathered and converted the data.

"They not only saved us $100,000 -- which we don't have -- this never would have happened without them," genealogist Luann Eisler said.

The computerized obituaries apparently are popular. Before the information was placed online, Ms. Eisler said, she received no more than 10 requests a month for obituaries. Since Thanksgiving, the index has received 8,182 hits and the library has received more than 100 letters requesting copies of obituaries.

The online obituaries are not yet complete. Currently, the index contains last names from A to R, and it does not yet include deaths from 1960 to 1990.

Project leader Lou Heitlinger, 74, who started the effort to place the obituaries online nearly six years ago, believes it will take him another two years to complete the task.

Once he finishes the rest of the alphabet, he's done with the project, he said. He'll let someone else finish the task.

"It's taken a lot longer than we anticipated. But we only thought we had 30,000 when we began," said Mr. Heitlinger, of Butler Township.

Before being placed online, the library's obituary information was in a card file or in notebooks. Ms. Eisler said more than 100,000 records are in the card file and she has no idea how many deaths the notebooks contain.

The earliest years involved the most work because up until 1919, Butler County had six to 10 newspapers. After that, only the Butler Eagle was based in Butler County, simplifying the task.

Obituaries can be a rich source of genealogical information, and sometimes they are the only written source of information on a person, the library notes on its Web site.

Interest in genealogy is growing, Ms. Eisler said. "It's a very popular hobby. The younger group is growing, but the older group is the bulk of my patrons," she said.

Obtaining information from the obituary index is free by going to the library's Web site at www.bcfls.org/butler and clicking on the tombstone.

Researchers can look up deceased people by first, middle or last name or retrieve records by newspaper or by publication date. They also may search by maiden name, title, child, date of birth or locality.

"It's very powerful. It will be a wonderful resource for people who can't make it to the library," Ms. Eisler said.

Copies of an obituary cost $5 for one, and $10 for two to five obituaries. To obtain a copy, download the request form, fill it out and mail it to the library.