Processing the Collections
If you have ever been to the society's reading room to look at any of the more than eight million processed manuscripts in the collection, then you know how it feels to hold a piece of history in your hands. Scholars, students, amateur historians, and genealogists all experience that feeling on a daily basis here at the VHS. But what about the unprocessed items in the collection? Are there more treasures waiting to be uncovered? The answer is yes.
Now, thanks to a generous grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a significant portion—more than 800 linear feet—of the unprocessed backlog will be cataloged over the next three years by two new members of the manuscripts department, senior project archivist Margaret Kidd and associate project archivist Colin Woodward. The goal is to preserve each collection, to organize and arrange its contents, to create descriptive records for the online catalog, and to provide digital images of some selected examples of those manuscripts, so that researchers will be able to learn about and use the newly processed materials. This backlog processing project will go a long way toward furthering the mission of the VHS to collect, preserve, and interpret the commonwealth's past for the education and enjoyment of present and future generations.
Featured Collections
• FitzGerald Bemiss Papers (Call number: Mss1 B4252 c)
• David Nelson Sutton Papers (Call number: Mss1 Su863 a)
• Ware Family Papers (Call number: Mss1 W2296 b)
• John D. Wood Papers (Call number: Mss1 W8503 a)
Access the Collections
Go to the VHS online catalog |
Processing collections
Collections storage
Collections storage |
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