About Virginia Heritage

VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia, is pleased to announce the availability of VIRGINIA HERITAGE (http://www.lib.virginia.edu/vhp/), a database of guides, or finding aids, describing archives and manuscripts in eleven repositories in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The participating institutions are: the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary, George Mason University, the Library of Virginia, Old Dominion University, Virginia Commonwealth University, the Virginia Historical Society, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the Virginia Military Institute, Virginia State University, and Washington and Lee University. At present, there are 1600 finding aids in the database. The full text of the finding aids is searchable by keyword and by individual institution.

The University of Virginia, representing VIVA, was awarded $250,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to implement the Virginia Heritage project. From the settlement at Jamestown in 1607, through the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and into the tumult of the 20th century, the Commonwealth of Virginia has stood at the center of America's history. Many of the priceless documents of American history, literature and political thought reside in the special collections of Virginia's colleges, universities, and other research libraries.

"We estimate that there about 25,000 finding aids representing some 30 million manuscripts and 16 million archives, to convert" said Edward Gaynor, project director at the University of Virginia Library. The Virginia Heritage project established its EAD processing center at the University of Virginia, which will provide the technological leadership for the project. As the first phase of the project, the processing center will encode and provide online access to approximately 15,000 pages of finding aids representing more than 500 collections on African-American history and culture that are drawn from all eleven participating institutions. In addition, the processing center will encode 5,000 related pages drawn from the University of Virginia's Virginiana collections, which are rich in resources that will help to place the African-American materials in context.

"While 1,600 out of 25,000 may not seem like much," commented Susan Riggs, project director at the College of William and Mary, "for us, it marks the end of a period of struggle to get this initial phase done, and the beginning of a very exciting time. It is crucial that detailed information about unique Virginia collections be easily available over the Internet. More and more, students and faculty make the Web their first research stop."

Added Jodi Koste, project director at Virginia Commonwealth University's Tompkins-McCaw Library, "We hope that this project will not only provide improved access to collections, but will also provide the expertise to move forward on conversion of all finding aids within Virginia. The manuscript and archival collections in the Commonwealth of Virginia are incredibly rich primary research resources, and those of us who care for them want to make it easier for people to find what is here, and use it."

Founded in 1994, VIVA (http://www.vivalib.org/) consists of the libraries of the thirty-nine state assisted colleges and universities within Virginia, and an additional twenty-nine independent, not-for-profit educational institutions. VIVA's mission is to provide, in an equitable, cooperative and cost-effective manner, enhanced access to library and information resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia's research libraries serving the higher education community.

For more information about VIRGINIA HERITAGE, contact Edward Gaynor at gaynor@virginia.edu or at (434) 924-3138.

Read the complete text of the proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities

Conditions of Use

The contents of the Virginia Heritage database are made publicly available by the participating institutions for use in research, teaching, and private study. For these purposes, you may reproduce (print or download) materials from this website without prior permission, on the condition that you provide proper attribution of the source in all copies. The guides and associated images are not, however, in the public domain. Copyright is held by the participating institutions.

By their use of these texts and images, users agree to follow these conditions of use:

• These texts and any associated images may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior written permission from the originating institution.

• These texts and any associated images may not be re-published in print or electronic form without prior written permission from the originating institution.

• Users may not download these guides and/or associated images in order to mount them on their own servers for public use, or for use by a set of subscribers. Institutions may link to the guides at http://www.lib.virginia.edu/vhp, subject to our conditions of use.

• Any permission given to reproduce these guides and/or associated images is non-exclusive and shall in no way restrict the originating institution's further use of the reproduced materials, including its right to allow further reproduction in commercial publications.