Grant awarded from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to process the papers of the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association
Author: Justin Saffell
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IImage Retrieval Scanning Demonstration and the Digitization of the Diaries of Dr. Dang Thuy Tram
The Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University has invited Derek Jenkins of IImage Retrieval (www.iiri.com) of Carrolton, Texas, to demonstrate two large format/book scanners. This demonstration is open to the public, and will include the digitization of the Diaries of Dr. Dang Thuy Tram, as well as a variety of other types of materials in the collections of the Vietnam Archive. The demonstration will be held in the Formby Room of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library on the TTU campus, and the times will be:
Tuesday, July 11th, 1:30-4:30
Wednesday, July 12th, 9:00-11:30, 1:30-4:00
Please feel free to stop by at any point during the times listed above. Derek will be available to answer questions concerning the two scanners and the other equipment sold by his organization, and Archive staff will be on hand to demonstrate the digitization procedures and answer any questions you may have about the Archive.
The scanners that Derek Jenkins will be demonstrating are the DigiBook 10000RGB and the smaller CopiBook RGB. These scanners are uniquely suited for digitizing large format materials, as well as rare and fragile books and materials. The 10000RGB can scan items up to 25″x 37″ and even larger on the A0 version. In 2002, this scanner was used to digitize the Gutenberg Bible held by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. IImage Retrieval has sold numerous units of both models to universities and museums around the country. More information can be found on their website.
We invite you and your staff and any other interested parties to join us for this demonstration.
For more information, please contact:
Justin Saffell
Head, Information Technology
The Vietnam Archive, TTU
justin.saffell@ttu.edu (mailto:justin.saffell@ttu.edu)
806-742-9010 -
Vietnam Archive Awarded NHPRC Grant
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the grant-making affiliate of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), has awarded the Vietnam Archive a grant for $48,565 to process the records of the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association (FVPPA). The Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation (VAHF) donated the 135 linear foot collection to the archive in June 2005. The grant will fund the hiring of a project archivist and one student assistant for one year. The project archivist and assistant will arrange the records, re-house the records and perform basic preservation care, and prepare a comprehensive finding aid for the collection. The Vietnam Archive will also provide conservation treatment for 15 feet of mold-damaged material in the collection.
The Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association was founded in 1977 in Arlington, Virginia. The organization worked toward the release of reeducation camp detainees in Vietnam and assisted applicants for the Orderly Departure Program, a program created to stem illegal and dangerous departures from Vietnam. The FVPPA also provided resettlement support for recent Vietnamese immigrants to the U.S., and lobbied Congress and corresponded with other government officials on behalf of Vietnamese immigrants and refugees.
For twenty years the FVPPA assisted, and kept detailed paper records on, at least 10,000 Vietnamese in their immigration and resettlement in the United States. By organizing, cataloging, and making the records of the FVPPA available to researchers, this project will significantly advance the study of the Vietnamese immigration experience.
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New: Vietnam Project Website User Survey
The Vietnam Project is asking website visitors to complete a user experience survey when they visit the Virtual Vietnam Archive and Vietnam Project websites. Participation in the brief, anonymous survey will allow us to better understand how and why our online resources are being used, and will provide important information that we can use to more effectively manage our resources. To complete the survey, please use the link below.
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2005 Pleiku-Ia Drang Veterans 40th Anniversary Commemoration Videos now available
Session Videos and Oral History videos are now available online at the links below. Versions are available for both high-speed and slower connections. As of this posting, not all videos are currently available, but more are being added daily.
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Session Videos from the 2006 ARVN Conference Now Available Online
Conference session videos for ARVN: Reflections and Reassessments After 30 Years now available online at the link listed below. There are versions of the videos for both high-speed and for slower connections.
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The Virtual Vietnam Archive 2005 Update
On September 1, 2005, the Virtual Vietnam Archive started its fifth year of work, resulting from very strong support from the US Congress and funding through the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Virtual Vietnam Archive continues to grow at a remarkable rate. With more than 2.3 million pages and in excess of 300,000 individual records, it is the largest online archive of Vietnam War related materials in the world. We add approximately 30,000 – 35,000 pages of new material online each month making the Virtual Vietnam Archive a very dynamic electronic research resource.
What is most rewarding about placing archive collections online is the knowledge that they are being used. In 2005, the Virtual Vietnam Archive accommodated nearly 245,000 online research sessions. That means researchers, veterans, and others went online more than 660 times per day to search the Virtual Vietnam Archive for documents and materials. That is more researcher traffic than most of the world’s largest and most important archival facilities. The digital era truly has transformed the way in which historical research is conducted. Virtual Vietnam Archive researchers downloaded more than 934,000 documents, photos, and other online artifacts – a total of more than 1.12 Terabytes of material.
To access these and numerous other online collections, please visit www.vietnam.ttu.edu and access the Virtual Vietnam Archive.
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Texas Tech University Vietnam Center Receives Grant to Expand Virtual Archive
The Vietnam Center will receive a $154,000 grant in July 2004 from the Houston Endowment. The grant will help make millions of pages of material available to researchers world-wide. The collections are currently held on microfilm at the Vietnam Archive and include rare 19th Century newspapers from French Indochina, documents of the United States Government, records of the United States Military Branches, and much more. The grant will be used to purchase a high-speed digital microfilm scanner, which will allow the center to put the microfilm on the internet.
Jesse and Mary Gibbs Jones, established the Houston Endowment in 1937. During 1938, Houston Endowment’s first full year of operation, the foundation donated $14,687, of which $11,285 went to schools and colleges. Over the years, Houston Endowment’s assets have grown to approximately $1.3 billion, enabling the foundation to donate more than $70 million annually to help fulfill the Jones’ vision of a healthy, vibrant community. The Houston Endowment also provided the Texas Tech Vietnam Center with the first Lee Roy Herron Scholarship in 2002, an award presented in honor of a U.S. Marine killed in Vietnam in 1969. -
Virtual Vietnam Archive Receives an Additional $497,050 from the US Congress
The Institute of Museum and Library Services officially announced that the Vietnam Center will receive $497,050 to fund the Virtual Archive for the fourth consecutive year. This funding will complete the four year, two million dollar project, and will allow for the continual addition of materials into the Virtual Vietnam Archive for many years to come. Congressman Randy Neugebauer initially notified the project of this Congressionally mandated award in December 2003. More information is available in a Lubbock Avalanche-Journal newspaper article (see link below). If you are interested in the Virtual Vietnam Archive project or have any questions or comments, please contact the staff of the Vietnam Archive.
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Vietnam Archive Email (vietnamarchive@ttu.edu) -
New Associate Director for Vietnam Archive
The Vietnam Archive has a new man at the helm, although he is hardly a new face on the scene. Steve Maxner has been named Associate Director (Archives), replacing Ron Frankum, who has moved on to a new teaching opportunity.Maxner joined the Vietnam Archive in 1998 as a research assistant. In 1999 he became the Archive’s first oral historian and played a key role in the development of the Archive’s Oral History Project. “Steve was well-trained under Ron,” said Jim Reckner, director of the Center. “I know he will do an outstanding job in that lead position. Ron’s departure is a great loss, but his move is a new opportunity for pursuing his career objectives.”Maxner is working on his dissertation for a doctorate in history at Texas Tech. He received BA and MA degrees in American history at the University of North Carolina and UNC-Wilmington in 1990 and 1995, respectively. Frankum had been at the Archive for nearly five years. His new horizon is a tenure track teaching position at Millersville University in Pennsylvania.