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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Want to learn another language? The Library of Virginia’s archival collections could be a place to start! Virginians learn new languages for a variety of…
In honor of National Library Week, I took a whirl through the Library of Virginia’s published holdings related to librarianship and library services. As the…
This is an entry in our “Random Reference” series, which features interesting discoveries made and reference questions answered by our Archives & Library Reference Services…