The first of four open house events at Special Collections will be held on Tuesday September 3rd from 5:00PM to 7:00PM. Other open houses will be held on the first Tuesday of each month this fall, through December.
If you’ve never taken the opportunity to explore the holdings of Special Collections—but perhaps you’ve never seen a first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, or always wondered about the relationship between cocktails and prohibition, or couldn’t believe that a 56 year old fellow from Wisconsin really did enlist in the Union Army in October 1861 . . . alongside his 12 year-old son—well, now would be a good time to start. We’ll have a representative sample of our holdings on display and staff members on hand who will be happy to answer your questions.
Selection of Civil War DiariesTwo works by Langston Hughes: A New Song (1938; signed) and Scottsboro Limited (1931)
This is just a sample of what you’ll find when you visit Special Collections. Please do drop in this Tuesday, September 3rd or, if you can’t make it then, visit us for one of our First Tuesday Open House events this fall. Whether to support an interest or provide assistance for a research project Special Collections is here to offer a wealth of assistance and materials. Come see us!
One of the reasons Special Collections launched this blog was to show off some of our cool materials. We can talk about new acquisitions, new discoveries, and old favorites all day! (Curious, just come by and ask us!) Another reason, though, was talk a little about the who, what, where, and why of Special Collections. One of the questions we are frequently asked, in one form or another, is “How to you get stuff?” The short answer is that we acquire books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other materials in three major ways: donation, purchase, and transfer (this last is the least common, but is vital to our mission of preserving university history!). The much longer answer continues below…
I’m Kira Dietz (aka archivistkira), and since part of my job as Acquisitions and Processing Archivist is to work with donors & potential donors, book & manuscript dealers, university employees, alumni and more, I thought I might spend a post or two over the next couple months tackling the “How do you get stuff?” query. The best way to do that is to answer a few more specific question potential donors might have.
From the Knox Gelatine: Desserts, Salads, Candies, and Frozen Dishes (1933). This pamphlet is one of a collection of 92 items donated in 2011 that went on to form the basis of the Culinary Pamphlet Collection, Ms2011-002. This collection continues to grow through donations and purchases. http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00787.xml
Why donations?
While Special Collections does have a budget to purchase materials (more on that in a future post), we rely heavily on donations. We have just that–a limited budget. Donations make up more than half of our holdings and are the backbone of our manuscripts, university archives, and rare book collection. There are financial costs involved in the acquisition, processing, maintenance, and access of our collections, but donation of materials can help us save a little on the acquisitions part. Donations that come with a financial contribution can help us further reduce some of the processing costs. Basically, without donations, the University Libraries would never have acquired much of the materials that led to the creation of Special Collections, and we wouldn’t be here today!
Where do donations come from?
Donations can come from anyone! We receive materials from staff/faculty and departments on campus, from alumni of Virginia Tech, from community members and organizations, from current students, from professionals active in fields related to our collecting areas, from researchers and scholars, and from people around the world! Sometimes, donors already know who we are. Sometimes, they hear about us at an event or through word of mouth. Sometimes, they have an item or collection that they just want to be available to a wide range of researchers, scholars, and visitors, rather than keeping it in their attic.
The John Newton Carnahan Letters, a series of Civil War letters by Carnahan to his family at home in Wytheville, Va., were donated to Special Collections in 2005. You can see a guide to the collection here: http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00485.xml
What kinds of donations do you want?
We’re always on the lookout for new items and collections! While an exhaustive list is tricky to provide, here are some general sorts of formats we seek: Correspondence, diaries, and manuscripts (preferably original documents), logbooks, ledgers, memorabilia, photographs, drawings, architectural collections, and other records of historical importance to the mission of the university and that support existing collections.
We are actively collecting materials in a 7 or 8 major subject areas at present. These include,but are not limited to, local history (SW Virginia and nearby parts of Appalachia), university history, the American Civil War, science and technology, speculative fiction, women & architecture, and food & drink history. You can see more about the kinds of collections we have in all these areas in the individual subject guides listed here.
What do you do with donations once you receive them?
One of the phrases you hear often in archives is, “it depends.” What we do with a donation once we receive it depends on a number of factors: what the donation consists of, how large it is, what condition it’s in, whether further donations may be expected, and more.
In general, the first thing we do is create a record of the donation in our database. Books and other publications that can be cataloged to the University Libraries’ Technical Services, then are returned to our Rare Book Collection. Manuscripts, photographs, drawings, maps, and mixed material collections are placed in acid-free boxes and added to our processing queue. If there are fragile or damaged items, we may do some preservation work like placing torn documents in polyester sleeves, unrolling and flattening rolled photos or documents, or photocopying acid paper. Preservation issues may also be addressed when a collection is processed at a later date.
This drawing of Garvey House, designed by architect Susana Torre, is part of the Susana Torre Architectural Papers, Ms1990-016. The collection includes more than 24 cu. ft. of correspondence, project files, articles, teaching notes, and designs. http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00175.xml
What do I do if I have something I want to donate?
Contact Special Collections! Whether your potential donation is a single item or lots of boxes, we’ll talk to you about what you have and how it might fit in with our holdings.We can also talk to you about how we process, house, and provide access to collections (I could write a whole series of posts on that subject, so I won’t cover it today). If you live nearby or are passing through Blacksburg and want to visit us, we’re happy to show you around the department, too.
If we all decide Special Collections is the right place for your donation, we’ll make arrangements to receive the material. It might mean a pick up, a drop off, or something being sent via the mail. As a record of your donation, we’ll ask you fill out and sign our “Deed of Gift” form. We’ll keep a copy and we send one to you, too. We also follow up with a thank you note from us.
On the whole, we try to keep our donation process as simple as possible for everyone.
What if Special Collections at Virginia Tech isn’t the right place for a collection?
That’s one of the main reasons we encourage you to talk to us about your donation. Sometimes, we just aren’t the right home for a book, a letter, or a diverse collection of materials. Whether or not you know it, though, there are LOTS of special collections, archives, historical societies, museums, and other institutions out there. All of them have different interests and collecting areas, and many of them accept donations. If we aren’t the right home, we’ll use our network of colleagues and resources to help you find an appropriate home.
This bridge drawing comes from the William MacFarland Patton Papers, Ms1954-001, donated to Newman Library in 1954, years before Special Collections was born! Patton was a professor at VAMC (now Virginia Tech) from 1896-1905. http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00786.xml
I hope this is a helpful introduction to donations at Special Collections. There are plenty more questions I could try to answer here, but each potential donation is different. Each one has its own needs and poses its own challenges. If you have something else you’d like to know, feel free to post a comment below or contact Special Collections. I’ll give you the best answer I can!
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.
Hokies know that each year their activities are chronicled with a Bugles call, but how many know that The Bugle, Virginia Tech’s yearbook, was once accompanied by a Tin Horn.
The first women graduates of Virginia Tech were (l-r) Mary Brumfield, 1923. and Ruth Terrett, Lucy Lancaster, Louise Jacobs, and Carrie Sibold, 1925
Women were formally approved by the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institutes Board of Visitors to be admitted to all courses of study excluding the military on January 13, 1921. This motion was approved, unanimously, due in large part, to VPI president, Julian A. Burruss persuasive arguments that VPI was in a unique position to economically provide the technical and agricultural training needed by Virginias women in the new arenas available to them in the post-World War I society.
Although, the motion to allow women to attend VPI was accepted unanimously by the Board acceptance among the cadets (and some professors) took a bit longer. The co-eds who arrived ready for classes in September 1921 faced cadets whopubliclyprotested their admission and professors who actively doubted the womens intelligence. Acceptance in extra-curricular activities was nonexistentso the co-eds organized their own groups: a basketball team (at various times called the Sextettes and the Turkey Hens); a Womens Student Organization; special science, chemistry, business, and biology clubs; the Coed Dramatics Club; and their own yearbook The Tin Horn.
The Tin Horn’s (1925) charge.
Tin Horn 1925, Underclassmen
First page of feature in 1929 Tin Horn titled “A Co-Ed’s Diary.”
By 1930 the co-eds established a Women’s Student Organization with Sally Ann Linkous serving as president. Tin Horn 1930
One of the special subject clubs established by the women due to their exclusion from the traditional academic clubs. 1931 Tin Horn
The 1925 Tin Horn, published when the women who entered in 1921 would be seniors, consisted of hand-drawn pages and pasted-in photographs dedicated to the spirit of fun. Although, billed as the first and only volume, subsequent publications of The Tin Horn followed in 1929, 1930, and 1931. The latter two were professionally printed. It would not be until 1941, 20 years after the arrival of the first female students on campus, that The Bugle would represent women equally alongside the men in their pages.
Special Collections has digitized all four volumes of The Tin Horn. They have also been pulled as part of our celebration of Womens History Month and are available for viewing in our Reading Room. Whether you visit with The Tin Hornonline or in Newman Library make sure to spend some time with Virginia Techs leading ladies.
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
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, 1930Old Library, exterior, March 1953Old 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.1953Newman 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).
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.
