The Circuit Court Records Preservation Program (CCRP) Grant Review Board met on 18 January 2017 at the Library of Virginia to consider records preservation grant requests from circuit courts across the commonwealth. Six members– four circuit court clerks, appointed annually by the president of the Virginia Court Clerks’ Association; and two staff members from the Library of Virginia, currently the State Archivist and the Deputy of Collections and Programs–comprise the board. Members meet twice a year to evaluate proposals. Clerks of the Circuit Courts apply for funds to conserve, secure, and increase access to circuit court records.
A total of eighty applications were submitted from seventy-nine localities with requests totaling $1,746,149. After careful evaluation and discussion of all applications, the board approved seventy-nine grant projects totaling over $250,000 (CCRP Grant Awards 2017A). Seventy-seven of the approved applications covered professional conservation treatment for items including deed books, will books, order books, surveyor books, minute books, birth and death registers, and plat books housed in circuit court clerks’ offices which had been damaged by use, age, or previous non-professional repairs. The remaining two grants were for records reformatting projects and plat cabinets.
The following are a few of the items that received grant funding:
The CCRP is administrated as part of the Library of Virginia’s Government Records Division. Funded through $1.50 from the circuit court clerk’s land instrument recordation fee, the CCRP provides resources to help preserve and make accessible permanent circuit court records. The program awards grants to commonwealth’s circuit court clerks to help address the preservation, security, and access needs of the records housed in their custody. Since 1992, the CCRP has awarded over 1,400 preservation grants for nearly $20 million dollars.
–Greg Crawford, Local Records Program Manager
