archivistkira About Special Collections and University Archives, Events

Special Collections Open House, October 1st!

Did you miss our Special Collections Open House on September 3rd? Don’t worry–you have three more chances to join us! Our next event is on Tuesday, October 1, from 5-7pm. You’ll have a chance to view a variety of materials from our collections, talk with an archivist (or two or three!), ask questions about what we do, learn about how we can help with personal and professional research, and even take a behind the scenes tour!

Here’s a few things you might see if you stop by:

 

We’ll also display items from the University Archives, the International Archives of Women in Architecture, and maybe even a few speculative fiction magazines.

If you can’t join us in October, we’ll have two more open houses this semester: November 5th and December 2nd (both Tuesdays and both from 5-7pm), so be sure to mark your calendar. See you soon!

vtspecblogger Events

Small towns, coal mines, and railroads

Mill Mountain and Roanoke River1

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my job as a digital collections specialist is creating displays of the interesting materials held in Special Collections. Recently Ive been digitizing our collection of Appalachian Postcards. There are some great pictures of small towns, coal mines, railroads, and beautiful scenery, and some interesting correspondence on the back too. One card also has an R.P.O. postmark indicating that it was processed on board a moving railroad car.

West Craigen Tunnel reverse RPO

Well be sharing some of our Appalachian postcards in a slideshow on Wednesday, April 17th at Appalanche a celebration of Appalachian culture in Newman Library. Come join us for music, dancing, food, and displays between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m on the first floor. Special Collections will host a display of selected local collections in their Reading Room and members of our Technical Services department will display and demonstrate quilting techniques. There will be old time music and square dancing in the Study Caf, and Appalachian food will be served–including pinto beans, greens, and corn bread. Itll be a shindig you wont want to miss!

Appalanche is co-sponsored by Appalachian Studies and University Libraries. The event is free and open to the public.

archivistkira Events, University History

Grief and Remembrance

It is often true that in our experience of sorrow we discover ourselves to be part of larger communities than we had first realized. Our grief resonates with others and our shared humanity becomes manifest in expressions of common feeling and supportfirst as condolence, and later as remembrance.

In the days and weeks following the events of April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech received over 89,000 cards and letters of support, posters, banners, art, poetry, wreaths, memory books, and other unique items from around the world. Campus visitors often left items at the Drillfield memorial. These were displayed on the Virginia Tech campus for several months before being gathered and inventoried to create the “Virginia Tech April 16, 2007, Archives of the University Libraries.” The collection consists of over 500 cubic feet of materials available to researchers through University Libraries Special Collections. (The finding aid for the collection is available here.)

This year, as part of Virginia Techs remembrance of the April 16, 2007 shootings, an art exhibit of items from the Condolence Archive will be installed in the Special Collections reading room on the first floor of Newman Library from April 13 – 16.

The exhibit,Never Forgotten: A Remembrance Art Exhibit from the April 16 Condolence Archives,is curated by Robin Scully Boucher, art director of Squires Perspective Gallery, and includes some works that have not been publicly shown before.

Hours of the exhibit:

  • April 13: 9:00am 4:00pm
  • April 14: 1:00pm – 4:00pm
  • April 15: 8:00am – 5:00pm
  • April 16: 8:00am – 5:00pm

A reception will be held April 16 from 2:00pm to 3:00pm

The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. For more information, please contactTamara Kennellyat 540-231-9214.

We hope you will come by Special Collections to see this selection of the tremendous outpouring of support and love extended to the Virginia Tech community in its time of grief.

vtspecblogger Events, News

Yours in Sisterhood: Special Collections Celebrates Womens History Month

Tin Horn 1925
Page from the 1925 self-published, co-ed yearbook The Tin Horn.

March is Womens History Month and in honor of this commemorative month Special Collections is hosting an interactive exhibit-celebrating women. Stop by the exhibit cases located on the first floor of Newman Library to see some representative materials from our collections featuring women in literature, the domestic arts, and science and technology. If you have a few extra minutes (or hours, seriously this is great stuff) then come on in and we will let you loose on a cart full of collections created by women. Our archivists have pulled womens travel diaries from 1840-2000s, speculative fiction magazines, literary first editions, architecture collections, items from Virginia Techs history, and much more.

If you are visiting with us through the magic of the Internet dont despair for each Tuesday in March we will be spotlighting a collection here on this very blog.

Mark your calendars for next Tuesday’s profile on the short-lived, co-ed yearbook, The Tin Horn, published by the first female students at Virginia Tech.