LM Rozema About Special Collections and University Archives, Events, University History

We Are Better Than We Think: April 16th remembrance exhibit online

Metal piece by artist Eric W. Schuttler, VT Class of 1993, inscribed “We are better than we think, and not quite what we want to be.” (H00203, Ms2008-020)

Every year Special Collections and University Archives, in partnership with the University Libraries and Virginia Tech Student Engagement and Campus Life, hosts annual remembrance exhibits to highlight the outpouring of love and support the university received in the aftermath of the tragedy of April 16, 2007. Although we are unable to host substantial physical exhibits this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have continued the remembrance exhibit online.

The exhibit We Are Better Than We Think: Selections from the April 16, 2007 Condolence Archives highlights the items Virginia Tech received following the events of April 16th. It features artifacts, children’s letters, poems, and more with messages of love, hope, and peace, most of which have not been displayed for exhibition before.

Visit the exhibit online at https://tinyurl.com/April162021Exhibit.

The title piece of the exhibit, “We Are Better Than We Think” by Eric W. Schuttler (pictured above) is on display in Newman Library near the 2nd floor entrance, April 12 thru April 23 during the library’s open hours. (No other items are on display.)

For more information on the university’s remembrance events, including the virtual 3.2-Mile Run in Remembrance, please visit https://www.weremember.vt.edu/.

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LM Rozema About Special Collections and University Archives, Events, University History

Unknown Origin: April 16th remembrance exhibit online

“We will never forget” poster with pictures of Norris Hall and a black VT ribbon, a poem, and the names of the 32 victims. (P00526, Ms2008-020)

Every year Special Collections and University Archives, in partnership with the University Libraries and Virginia Tech Student Engagement and Campus Life, hosts annual remembrance exhibits to highlight the outpouring of love and support the university received in the aftermath of the tragedy of April 16, 2007. Although we are unable to host physical exhibits this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have continued the remembrance exhibit online.

The exhibit Unknown Origins: Anonymous gifts in the April 16, 2007 Condolence Archives highlights the messages Virginia Tech received from unknown individuals, organizations, or places following the events of April 16, 2007. It features anonymous donations and gifts of unknown origin, paying homage to those who want to be part of the mourning and recovery process but do not necessarily want to be known. 

Visit the exhibit online at https://tinyurl.com/April16Exhibit.

For more information on the university’s remembrance events, including the virtual 3.2-Mile Run in Remembrance, please visit https://www.weremember.vt.edu/.

LM Rozema About Special Collections and University Archives, Events, University History

Holding the Light: April 16th Remembrance Exhibits on display April 8-18, 2019

Prayer flags were on display for a recent Day of Remembrance observance.
Prayer flags on display for a recent Day of Remembrance observance will be on display.

“Holding the Light,” is one of two exhibits that will be displayed on the second floor commons in Virginia Tech’s Newman Library as the university observes its 2019 Day of Remembrance.

The exhibit, on display Thursday, April 8 through Tuesday April 18, is a collaboration between the University Libraries and Student Engagement and Campus Life and honors those lost and injured on April 16, 2007. It features items of condolence from around the nation and world.

Among the artifacts on display will be an eight-pointed star quilt from St. Labre Indian School in Ashland, Montana, large banners signed by people in Seoul, South Korea, a work of calligraphy from Japan based on the Buddhist Heart Sutra, and a painting by students at Rappahannock County High School. The exhibit will also include items from the State University of New York Morrisville, Florida State University, Virginia Tech Graduate Arts Council, Hillel, Living Buddhism, and Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the New River Valley.

Hand made quilt from Saint Labre Academy, in the April 16, 2007, Condolence Archives
Hand made quilt from Saint Labre Academy, in the April 16, 2007, Condolence Archives

A display in the windows of Special Collections on the 1st floor of Newman Library will also reflect the “Holding the Light” theme. Most of the items on display were either left at the Drillfield memorial in the aftermath of April 16th or from vigils at other places in remembrance of the victims and in honor of the survivors.

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Goggles placed at the VT Drillfield memorial site in the April 16, 2007, Condolence Archives, will be on display.

The second exhibit, “A Community of Learners, a Legacy of Achievement,” will feature photographs of each of the 32 victims and a selection of books that reflect their individual disciplines and interests.

In addition to these two exhibits, a small garden space for quiet reflection outside of Squires Student Center’s Old Dominion Ballroom will be available to the community. The garden features a large inscribed rock received from Itawamba Community College in Fulton, Mississippi, and stones from previous April 16 Perspective Gallery Exhibitions. Itawamba Community College planted a dogwood tree in honor of the victims, and this garden also includes a dogwood tree.

A small garden space outside of Squires Student Center. Photo by Robin Boucher
The Remembrance garden space outside of Squires Student Center is always open for quiet reflection. Photo by Robin Boucher.

For more information on the 2019 Day of Remembrance, please visit the We Remember website.

LM Rozema About Special Collections and University Archives, News

Announcing a New Look for the Special Collections Website

If you’ve been to the Special Collections website recently, you already know – it looks brand new! If you haven’t seen it, please visit it at https://spec.lib.vt.edu/.

Here are screenshots comparing the old (left) and new (right) Special Collections website designs:

Screenshot of old Special Collections website on May 21, 2018 (archive-it.org)
Screenshot of new Special Collections website on August 2, 2018 (spec.lib.vt.edu)

We’ve been discussing a redesign of the website for a while now, but with the rebranding of the Virginia Tech website, the University Libraries have been working all year on putting its pages into the new VT design theme. And now, Special Collections is part of this new design!

The new website aims to make finding materials easier by including a search box on the main page for digital content, such as digitized letters and photographs from our collections, and for finding aids, which describe our manuscript and archival collections. Menus at the top and sidebars on each page organize the content of the website into specific areas and minimize the number of pages you have to click thru to find the information you need.

We’re still planning on some minor additions, such as changing images in the banner on the main page and adding smaller images on some of the other pages. If you have any recommendations, please contact us with ideas!

New ImageBase website

On a related note, our ImageBase website has also been redesigned to fit into the new theme.If you haven’t seen it, please visit it at https://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/.

Here are screenshots comparing the old (left) and new (right) ImageBase website designs:

Screenshot of old ImageBase website on May 21, 2018 (archive-it.org)
Screenshot of new ImageBase website on August 2, 2018 (imagebase.lib.vt.edu)

The organization and content of ImageBase remain the same, but the design fits in with the Virginia Tech and University Libraries’ new design. The old logo has been retired, and we are currently working on a new banner for the main page, similar to that on the new Special Collections website. If you have any recommendations, please contact us with ideas!

LM Rozema About Special Collections and University Archives

What’s a “vertical file”?

Have you ever heard the term “vertical file”? Typically, when researchers come in to learn more about a topic, the first place to look is in our vertical files. These are generally folders of newspaper clippings, brochures, press releases, and other items that are arranged by subject. The term itself derives from the vertical filing cabinets that archives may use to hold these collections [for your information, Special Collections uses boxes rather than filing cabinets].

Special Collections has several sets of vertical files:

But I’d like to tell you specifically about the Record Group Vertical Files. This collection is specifically about departments, offices, and colleges at Virginia Tech, including materials advertising the university and articles about it. For example, below is a postcard advertising the Virginia Tech College of Science, the Advisor’s Manual for the VT College of Arts & Sciences, a blank application for the VT Graduate School, and an issue of the Carilion Clinic Report about the VT Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute.

Postcard for the VT College of Science
Advisor’s Manual for the VT College of Arts & Sciences
VT Graduate School Application
Report about the newly opened VT School of Medicine
Blank form for the VT College of Arts & Sciences’ Academic Dean’s List


In addition to the educational colleges and departments of the university, we have materials from the operational offices and student groups. Below are examples, including brochures for the Perspective Gallery and HokiePRIDE, an official VT flyer in Arabic, a program for the Alpha Kappa Delta National Sociology Honor Society, and an article about the Muslim Student Association.

Brochure for the Perspective Gallery
Arabic flyer about Virginia Tech for international students
Brochure for HokiePRIDE
Article about Muslim Student Association
Program for Alpha Kappa Delta Initiation Ceremony

The finding aid for the Record Group Vertical Files describes some of these groups when possible, including administrative history, former names of units, topics within the terms, and references to other related groups.

Whenever you are looking up the history of the university and you don’t know where to start, this collection is a great first choice. The same holds true for looking up any subjects in all the vertical files we have!

LM Rozema About Special Collections and University Archives, Just for Fun

A Look Behind the Glass Door…Part 2

If you are curious what Special Collections looks like behind the scenes, Kira Dietz showed a glimpse of onsite storage previously in this blog. Well, we also have offsite storage in the Library Storage Building, managed by the University Libraries. In addition to Special Collections, Newman Library and the Records Management Department house material at the storage building. Unlike storage onsite, the shelving is so tall and aisles so long, special equipment is used to access materials up to the top and down the rows.

Library Storage Building, length of aisles
Library Storage Building, showing the lengths of aisles and some of the maps we house out there (before they were placed in boxes) alongside the University Libraries’ offsite books and other publications

Library Storage Building, height of aisles
Library Storage Building, showing the height of aisles – on the right side you can see some of the archives boxes and architectural drawings from Special Collections

Special Collections houses our large manuscript collections, most of which are accessed less frequently than onsite storage. Space is available where we can work, but we have to schedule with the other departments, who use the same office space. Recently, several students and I have been working on collections housed offsite, including the William C. Wampler Congressional Papers with 250 boxes of files from Hon. Wampler’s nearly two decades in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Pocahontas Mine Collection, which is approximately 900 cu. ft. with over 7,000 maps of mines in southwestern Virginia and Appalachia operated by CONSOL Energy and its predecessors (look out for more info on this collection when processing is done).

A student worker reviews a map from the Pocahontas Mines Collection at Library Storage Building. Some of the maps like this one are so large, we have to unroll them bit by bit and weigh them down to view them during processing.

Wampler Papers at Library Storage Building
Processing the Wampler Papers and other such large collections offsite means we have to temporarily store them in the hall and in the shared office space before they can be reshelved!

Wampler Papers being processed at Library Storage Building
The Wampler Papers during processing at the Library Storage Building

The University Libraries are currently working on another offsite storage building, this time with movable shelves. Movable shelves greatly increase the storage capacity in locations, but need strong floors to keep them stable! We also have a small, secure space in the basement of Newman Library that is shared with the rest of the library for temporary storage for our larger or more unwieldy collections, such as part of the Avery-Abex Metallurgical Collection with over 200 containers, many in unusually types and sizes.

Examples of unique shelving that came with one of our collections
Avery-Abex in basement

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this look behind the scenes!

vtspecblogger Just for Fun

Not an “Optick-al” Illusion: Rare Isaac Newton Text at VT

In 2007, Special Collections at Virginia Tech was graciously gifted a copy of Isaac Newtons Opticks or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light.

Title Page
Title Page from Opticks, or, A treatise of the reflections, refractions, inflections and colours of light by Sir Isaac Newton

 Opticks was Newton’s second major book on physical science and was first published in English in 1704, with a scholarly Latin translation following in 1706. The book analyzes the fundamental nature of light by means of the refraction of light with prisms and lenses, the diffraction of light by closely spaced sheets of glass, and the behavior of color mixtures with spectral lights or pigment powders.

 The publication of Opticks represented a major contribution to science, and was well received and hotly debated upon its release. Opticks is largely a record of experiments and the deductions made from them, covering a wide range of topics.  In the book Newton sets forth in full his experiments, first reported to the Royal Academy of London in 1672 on dispersion, or the separation of light into a spectrum of its component colors. He demonstrates how the appearance of color arises from selective absorption, reflection, or transmission of the various component parts of the incident light.

 The major significance of Newton’s work is that it overturned the dogma, attributed to Aristotle or Theophrastus and accepted by scholars in Newton’s time, that “pure” light (such as the light attributed to the Sun) is fundamentally white or colorless, and is altered into color by mixture with darkness caused by interactions with matter. Newton showed just the opposite was true: light is composed of different spectral hues, and all colors, including white, are formed by various mixtures of these hues.

Fold-out page with diagrams illustrating Newton’s experiments
A chart containing results of Newton’s tests
Opening page to Part I of the text

 

 The copy belonging to Special Collections is a 3rd edition of the text, printed in 1721 in London for William and John Innys and was the last edition produced during Newtons lifetime. This nearly 300 year old leather bound book is in excellent condition, even the fold-out pages containing diagrams of Newtons experiments.

 The gift was designated by the donors in honor of Matthew Charles Ziegler, Class of 2003. Since it is not recommended that modern materials such as bookplates and their glue be attached to such extraordinary and rare books, this information is noted in the bibliographic record. What a great way to commemorate a Hokie!

archivistkira University History

Looking Back at the Library

Virginia Tech has a long history and the library (or rather, a library) has always been a part of it. When the university opened in 1872, there was only a single building and the library was in a room that served as both a library and an office, with an attached reading room. By 1882, the library had moved to the second floor of the Second Academic Building.

Old Library, 1905
Old Library, 1905

By the mid-1910s, what is sometimes referred to as “the Old Library,” had taken up residence in the former chapel. The chapel was the second structure on the site of the current Newman Library (the first was a lecture and laboratory building).

Old Library, interior, 1930
Old Library, interior, 1930

Old Library, exterior, March 1953
Old Library, exterior, March 1953

Old Library, during the fire, August 1953
Old Library, during the fire, August 1953

In August of 1953, the library burned in a fire. Construction of the Carol M. Newman Library began shortly after, and was completed in 1955. The images below show the finished marble staircase on the second floor, and the building from outside. (The pedestrian plaza between the library, the bookstore, Squires Student Center, and the current Graduate Life Center came later.)

Newman Library, entrance interior, c.1953
Newman Library, entrance interior, c.1953

Newman Library, exterior (looking toward the current plaza between the library and bookstore), 1978
Newman Library, exterior (looking toward the current plaza between the library and bookstore), 1978

The interior of the library, at least in the older part of the building, may not look all that different. Stacks have moved and reference desks have shifted, but those familiar pillars and windows are present today. The addition, which includes the glass wall on the first floor, was completed in 1981 (after the pictures below).

Newman Library, interior, 1963
Newman Library, interior, 1963

Newman Library, interior, 1971
Newman Library, interior, 1971

Today’s building has come a long way from a single shared room in the only building on campus, but the goals are still the same: connecting students, staff, faculty, and the larger research community to the resources they need.

The pictures in this post came from the Special Collections’ Historical Photograph Collection. We have thousands of photographs documenting the history of Virginia Tech, from the Corps of Cadets to sports, and from buildings to faculty and staff. There are also lots of photos of Blacksburg and its many changes through the years. So if you’re curious what the corner of Main St. and College Ave. looked like the 1930s, who the first squadron of women were in the Corps of Cadets, or when basketball shorts really were short, we might just be able to help.