VIVA Special Collections Committee
Minutes

September 11, 1997

Virginia State University

Present: Kay Domine (W&M), John Kneebone (LVA), Paul Koda (GMU), Jodi Koste (VCU), Gail McMillan (VT), scribe, Joyce Ogburn (ODU), Elsie Stephens Weatherington (VSU), chair

INTRODUCTIONS

Members were introduced and chair gave some remarks to the committee.

UPDATE ON VIVA-FUNDED PROJECTS

All six doctorals are engaged in imaging projects using VIVA funds. A full status report will be posted on the VIVA listserv. I will give you highlights of each project today.

William & Mary (Kay Domine)

Four digitizing projects were begun at William and Mary in 1996-97, and all will be continuing during 1997-98 with the support of VIVA funding. These include "A Guide to Civil War Research at Swem Library," "Jamestown Corporation Papers," "Admission of Women to The College of William and Mary," and Photographs from the University Archives. Computers and additional data storage capability on the library's server were also purchased in 1996-97.

To be added to the projects for 1997-98 are images from original materials in the Manuscripts and Rare Books Department. Scanning will be done at two settings for each image, archival and reference. Thumbnail images and mounting on the Web will be done.

George Mason University (Paul Koda)

Three projects: Virginia Civil War Images, Reston Virginia Images, and the Electronic Documentary History of GMU, all related to Virginia's life, culture and history.

Two future projects are planned. Northern Virginia Folklore Collection. Special Collections & Archives is planning to digitize over 700 original folklore documents depicting all aspects of the life and history of Northern Virginia. This unique digitized collection will grow at the rate of fifty to seventy-five documents a year.

The Oliver Atkins Photograph Collection. Atkins was a White House Photographer who bequeathed over 50,000 photographs of Washington and world personalities to Special Collections & Archives. They cover the years 1945 to 1974. Selections of the most important and interesting photographs will be digitized for use by citizens and researchers.

Virginia Tech (Gail McMillan)

Digitized about 5,000 images through the university's Photographic Services and some in-house scanning. The images focus on regional history and were drawn largely from the Norfolk and Southern Collection. Students entered identifying data and prepared thumbnails so that users have creator, subject, and title access to all digital images. VT will continue to digitize, enter identifying data, and improve user access to images through purchase of a server for the images.

Old Dominion University (Joyce Ogburn)

Mounted descriptions of all of its collections on its web pages. There was particular focus on collections on the Civil War and the Norfolk desegregation. Also added subject pages to the collections in military history and political history, which are linked to the Civil War collections and Norfolk desegregation. ODU will publish subject pages of the other collections in women's history, Old Dominion University, Norfolk arts, and Norfolk history. This fall they will begin to identify and digitize selected materials.

Virginia Commonwealth University (Jodi Koste)

From May through August 1997, three VCU graduate students working under the support of VIVA funds helped Special Collections & Archives arrange and describe several collections and make the guides available on the web. The guides added to the web page were for collections from the Virginia Black History Archives (VBHA) and include the Astoria Beneficial Club Archives, Richmond Crusade for Voters Archives, and the J. Rupert Picott Papers. The guide to the John M. Brooks NAACP Collection was also added. This fall the guide to the Richmond First Club Archives will be added to the web and include hyperlinks to several annual reports that were scanned by VIVA supported students this summer.

Library of Virginia (John Kneebone)
[Not VIVA-fundprojects, but of interest to the Committee.]

WPA Life Histories Project: Creation of a bibliographic finding aid (MARC based) to 1,100 life histories of Virginians collected by staff of the Virginia Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration, 1938-1942, with links to digitized typescripts of the life histories. Completion date, early 1998.

Online Guide to Governors' Correspondence, with digitized finding aids. Completion date, late 1997.

Board of Public Works Map Project: Online finding aid to Board of Public Works, which oversaw Virginia's investments in railroads, roads, canals, bridges, etc., 1816-1902, with links to 900 digitized maps from the collection. Completed summer 1997.

World War One Questionnaires: Bibliographic finding aid (MARC based) to questionnaires completed by 20,000 Virginians about their service at home and abroad during World War One and compiled by the Virginia War History Commission, with links to digitized images of the questionnaires. Completion date, late 1997.

Charles Gillette Photograph Collection: Bibliographic finding aid (MARC based) to 900 photographs of works by noted landscape architect Charles Gillette (1886-1969), with links to digitized images of the photographs. Completion date, late 1997.

Elizabeth Roderick also recently announced the Virginia Digital Library Project to identify and selection potential collections for digitization resident in local public libraries to be part of the "A Nation Connected@The Library" program, sponsored by the American Library Association.

And, the Library of Virginia this week received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create bibliographic finding aids and to digitize texts and images from the Virginia Historic Inventory conducted by the Virginia Writers Project during the 1930s.

OPEN DISCUSSION

Individual institution reports spawned tangential discussions, such as VIVA funding for Special Collections. Should institutions be preparing black and white images (in addition to color thumbnails) to improve access speed for users? There are huge time commitments in maintaining Web sites due to a strong sense of providing good service. Discussion also focused on adding subject or topical access to VIVA Special Collections. Suggestions included transportation, science, political history, civil war, regional historical activities. John had quite a bit of advice about wording we should use when describing the collection projects: value added by certifying quality of images, organizing, indexing, and disseminating images.

Budget questions were plentiful. No one had a clear understanding of how much each institution has for 1997/98. The original amount allocated to Special Collections was $100,000. Most understood that each doctoral had $20,000 but to bring ODU into the work of the committee, each institution would actually receive $16,667. However, $20,000 of the original appropriation was allocated by the VIVA Steering Committee to hire someone to write a grant that would garner enough funds for the 400th anniversary project so that VIVA is not requesting any money from SCHEV for Special Collections activities within the VIVA 1998-2000 budget request. The chair issued a copy of the June 5, 1997 Steering Committee Minutes which validate the appropriation. Joyce Ogburn has invoiced the other doctorals for $3,333 spreading the $80,000 evenly among the doctorals. There is a question of future funding. Therefore, the committee is moving forward on the 400th anniversary project to have a demonstration project with which to seek grant funding.

The lack of communication from the Steering Committee and missing financial support for 1998-2000 left the committee feeling that the financial commitment and value of Special Collections may not be as strong as support for Technical Services, User Services, and Collections. The chair will convey the concern. However, with a new chair/liaison for Special Collections, the committee is optimistic that there will be someone to speak for Special Collections.

In order to improve access to VIVA Special Collections. Gail McMillan brought a draft of a new design for the homepage which was supported by the committee. See it at http://spec.lib.vt.edu/VIVA/viv.htm

Time line

At the June 5, 1997 Steering Committee, Joyce Ogburn presented a proposal to begin work on the 400th anniversary of Virginia's founding. The Steering Committee approved the project. Gail McMillan will prepare a first draft of the historical time line (1607-2007) when committee members send the following information:

The following time line items could possibly be color coded

From this information Gail will develop a map that will identify the regional collections available online.

The next meeting will be Oct. 17. ESW will ask UVa to host. Oct. 24 is the back up date.

http://spec.lib.vt.edu/viva/minutes970911.html
updated Oct. 20, 1997 (GMc)