THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220046
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: 35 lines
THE WORLD WAR II photos on the World Wide Web open the Library of Virginia in a new way, says Elizabeth Roderick, assistant director for network services for the stare library. ``It removes the geographical and physical restraints some visitors might encounter,'' she said.
The $45,000 Signal Corps project, paid for by federal funds, is only one of the library's on-line digital collections. These other collections are also available:
The Virginia Colonial Records collection. This bibliographic index of 500,000 personal names and ship names reconstitutes the archive of Virginia's Colonial history from documents from more than 100 foreign repositories. The collection includes copies of Virginia-related documents from Britain, Ireland and France.
The Bible Records collection, a valuable resource for genealogical researchers searching for birth and death information. For some years in Virginia's history, no official records were kept, making family Bible notations the only source of information.
More than 1.3 million documents, images and electronic finding aids are available through the library's home page. During the second phase of developing the digital library, an additional 1 million digital images will go up by September 1996, including the 1939 World's Fair photograph collection and the antebellum free black registers.
The Library of Virginia, in downtown Richmond, has served the archival and research needs of Virginians since 1823. It holds Virginia's official records from 1607 through the present day. MEMO: To access the Digital Library Collection on the Internet use
Uniform Resource Locator (URL) http://leo.vsla.edu/lva/lva.html. by CNB