The Vietnam Center and Archive website has a new look.  The new version of our website features our new logo (designed by Misty Pollard of Texas Tech University’s Creative Services), colors inspired by the Texas Tech University Identity Guidelines, and numerous images from our archival collections.  In an effort to improve usablility of our site, we have added some new pages (such as online exhibits, subject guides, follow the VNCA, and information for researching onsite or online, among others), and reorganized some existing pages and locations.  Many of our most popular sections of the site, including the Virtual Archive and the Oral History Project, have the same URLs as before.  If you are unable to find the page you are looking for, try our Site Map.

(If you are a regular visitor to our website, the first time you visit the site, pages may look a little odd.  If this happens, it is because your browser is attempting to load an old stylesheet.  To correct this, hit the reload button in your browser, or hit F5 on your keyboard)

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us at any time.

To assist researchers studying the topic of agent orange during and after the Vietnam War, the Vietnam Center and Archive has produced a new subject guide highlighting agent orange related resources in both our digital and physical collections. The subject guide is divided by media type and subcategory, and includes links to the digital objects when available. This is the first in a series of subject guides that we will produce over the next year.

Agent Orange Subject Guide – http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamarchive/resources/agentorange/index.php

On December 16th thru 18th, the website of the Vietnam Center and Archive will experience periods of unavailability between the hours of 8am-5pm (-06:00 GMT). During this time we will be performing maintenance on existing systems and installing new equipment. While the website will be available during portions of these days, it will become unavailable without warning. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at 806-742-9010 or vawebmaster@ttu.edu.

To help make the Virtual Vietnam Archive more user-friendly, we have made a few minor changes to the Browse Search Results pages. These changes are mostly cosmetic, serving to make the page look a little more streamlined.

Researchers familiar with our Virtual Vietnam Archive have probably seen their fair share of the “Ghostbusters” like sign above and many have probably wondered what that sign really means.

The red sign means that a document is not available online. Why is it not available some might ask? There are two reasons for seeing the dreaded red sign. One, the document is copyrighted. Due to the stipulations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, copyrighted documents can be digitized as a form of preservation, but can not be redistributed in that format. This stipulation means that while we can scan the document to PDF or electronic form, we can not redistribute the electronic version over the internet or by burning it to a CD and giving it to someone else. Providing electronic versions of copyrighted documents to a third party constitutes a violation of the copyright law.

The second reason for seeing the little red sign is that the material in question has not been digitized yet. Many items are difficult and time consuming to digitize, video and microfilm are primary examples, or may be too fragile to digitize. Because these materials take so long to digitize, we create documents for them in the virtual archive so they are accessible via reference request.

The real issue out of all the red sign business is how do I get a copy of those materials? For paper documents you can request a copy be mailed to you. Send us a Reference Request from our web page with a list of the item numbers and item titles and we will make photocopies of the documents and mail them to your home. For videos and photographs we can make copies of the materials, but only if they are not copyrighted. If the videos and photos are copyrighted you will have to order copies of them from the copyright owner. Reproduction and postage fees do apply for reproduction requests. See our price list for the current charges.

The Vietnam Archive has added a new feature to our website – a Random Image page. This new page will load an image from our holdings of over 100,000 digitzed photographs, slides, and negatives, and you can refresh the page to see a new image.

Additionally, this Vietnam Archive Random Image page is available as a Google Gadget. You can add the gadget using this gadget url: href=”http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/108667873740680159525/vncaimage.xml, or using the button below. You can also add the gadget to your own webpage using this interface, which will allow you to customize the width, height, and border color of the gadget. If you do this, please note that all images displayed through this gadget are property of the Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech University, and this should be noted on your page.

This is the conclusion of a three part series on ways to access the digitized materials of the Vietnam Archive without using the Virtual Vietnam Archive search page (see Part I and Part II).

Last week, I started a post on Ways to Access the Digitzed Materials of the Vietnam Archive. This is a continuation of that series.

Look for conclusion of this series later this week.

Did you know that there are a number of ways to access the digitized materials of the Vietnam Archive other than through the Virtual Vietnam Archive search page?

One way to access digital materials, or just to browse through the holdings of the Vietnam Archive, is through the Browse the Collections page. This section of our website contains alphabetical listings of all of the collections in the Vietnam Archive (arranged by last name for individuals, or first word for other collection types). Each browse page contains some basic information about the collection, including a Scope and Content note (when available) that provides an overview of what the collection contains. There is also a link to the full finding aid for the collection (a finding aid is basically an inventory of the collection). When materials from a particular collection have been digitized, links will be provided at the bottom of the finding aid to the digital materials. Please note, though, that due to system limitations, these links will only generate up to 250 records. To access the remainder of a collection, you will have to utilize the Virtual Archive search page. Additionally, the finding aid will have a link to an oral history if one has been conducted with the donor of the collection. A link to Browse the Collections can be found on our homepage.

Speaking of Oral Histories, there is also a Browse the Oral History Interviews page (link available on the homepage). This page is arranged alphabetically by last name of the interviewee, includes a description of each interview, and links to listen to the audio of the interview and/or a transcript, when available. In addition to the browse pages, there are also pages listing just interviews or collections added within the last few months.

I’ll post more ways to access digital materials here next week. (see Part II, Part III)

To assist frequent users of our site with staying on top of new additions to the Virtual Vietnam Archive, as well as updated items, a RSS feed of new and updated records has been created. This feed will update automatically at 5:00am (-0600 GMT) Tuesday-Saturday and will list items added to the Virtual Vietnam Archive the day before. Additionally, any existing records that have been updated, such as collection Finding Aids, Oral Histories, or Audio or Moving Image records, will be listed as well. Each RSS item listing will include the title of the item, some basic information about the item, and a link to a more complete record for the item, including links to the digitized version for non-copyrighted materials. Please note that the RSS feed does not include a direct link to download the item, just a link to a page where you can download the item, if available.
Using this feed will allow users to view new and updated records without having to go through the Virtual Vietnam Archive search engine.

More information about the RSS feed can be found on the About the Blog and RSS feed page, or you can .