VIVA Special Collections Committee
Minutes

Present: Kay Domine (W&M), Edward Gaynor (UVA), Barbara Haase for Paul Koda (GMU), John Kneebone (LVA), Jodi Koste (VCU), Joyce Ogburn (ODU), Laura Smith for Gail McMillan (VT), Elsie Stephens Weatherington (VSU), Chair

• Budget

  Budget appropriations were clarified. ODU billed the other doctorals for $2,667 providing a total budget of $13,333 for ODU. The other doctoral institutions are left with a budget of $17,333. If a grant writer is secured for a special project, ODU will not be asked to provide funding.

• ArchivesUSA

  The Committee decided to make a recommendation to the Collections Committee not to purchase ArchivesUSA because the information is out of date, doesn't have many finding aids, and may be rarely used as the product is now. Money was not the issue, quality and content were the main focus. The Committee will make a statement to the Collections Committee that each doctoral institution will give as much updated information as possible to Chadwyck Healey and would be very willing to review the product again a year from now.

• Virginia Heritage Project

  Finding aids are essential in making special collections easy to search and retrieve information for both the novice and the sophisticated users. The Committee would like to pursue a project that would produce online finding aids for primary materials in Virginia repositories, along with digital surrogates (text and images) for a selected core of materials. The committee's objective is to obtain grant funding to pursue the development of the database. The initial phase is to develop the framework for the union database of archives and special collections finding aids. The framework will include identification of core collections and finding aids, technical infrastructure, timeline, training, and ongoing maintenance. Edward Gaynor is making changes to the draft proposal and will send to Committee members as soon as possible for suggestions or changes. Elsie will check with Kathy Perry to find out the deadline by which VIVA funds must be spent. If funds must be spent by June 30, 1998, the Committee will move as quickly as possible to get the Steering Committee's approval for the project.

• Timeline

  The purpose of the timeline was questioned. The Committee reiterated the significance of the timeline in showing how VIVA money was used to support special collections. The timeline information would eventually fold into the Virginia Heritage project. The 400th timeline will be completed by June 1998. Laura distributed a copy of the homepage Gail McMillan has developed for the timeline. Again, the Committee thanks Gail for producing the timeline.

• Open Discussion

  The Special Collections Committee goals for the current year will be presented to the Steering Committee at its December 4, 1997 meeting. The goals include (1) deliverables at each institution for projects being implemented with VIVA funds, (2) completion of the 400th timeline project by June 1998, and (3) initial discussion for securing approval for the Virginia Heritage Project and moving forward to secure services of grant writer.

The next meeting will be on January 23, 1998, 11 a.m., at Virginia State University's Johnston Memorial Library, 2nd Floor Conference Room at 10:00 am.

http://spec.lib.vt.edu/viva/minutes971121.html
added Dec. 15, 1997 (GMc for ESW)