I am not only a reference archivist, but also a U.S. Army veteran. I served as an M1A1 Abrams and M551 Sheridan armor crewman in…
Kenneth ForestDecember 2, 2024
I was fortunate enough to be able to visit family living in the path of totality for the solar eclipse on April 8. The day…
Nathan VerillaJune 3, 2024
Every record and artifact at the Library of Virginia not only tells a story, but also has a story. The latter is referred to as…
Kenneth ForestJune 5, 2023
Among my work projects, I correct Optical Character Recognition (OCR) newspaper text for the Virginia Chronicle website. One of the features of the Sunday editions…
Nathan VerillaApril 3, 2023
Many times, in the course of our work processing local government records, we run across something interesting that sends us down the proverbial rabbit hole.…
Vince BrooksMarch 6, 2023
A staff member recently asked me when VTLS, the Library’s first Integrated Library System with an online catalog for the public, was installed. While searching…
Ginny DunnJanuary 16, 2023
Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I am sure some people are thinking about gathering together with family and friends around a big table where…
Amanda MorrellNovember 7, 2022
While many archival items contain interesting content, the item itself may look rather boring. That is certainly not the case with an arithmetic book from…
Ginny DunnJuly 4, 2022
Peter Francisco was a revered Revolutionary War soldier with mysterious origins. It is believed that his American story began in 1765, after being discovered abandoned…
Dawn TinnellJune 6, 2022
We are living in an age of peak advice, a crowded media landscape in which bloggers, columnists, podcasters, and online strangers field inquiries about everything…
Rebecca SchneiderMarch 7, 2022
Gothic Romance is a genre of fiction that reached its height during the Romantic Period, late 18th and early 19th century, in England. These novels…
August MoulisFebruary 7, 2022
Manakin Town, in present-day Powhatan County, was a unique community made up of Huguenot (French Protestant) refugees who settled there in 1700-1701. Although free from…
Bill BynumSeptember 15, 2021
The Library of Virginia has long maintained an excellent series of introductory guides to the Library’s resources and subject areas. At first, these were mostly…
Library of VirginiaJuly 12, 2021
The best thing about being a reference archivist is that every time you pick up the phone you have no idea what the question will…
Dawn TinnellJune 7, 2021
