The Vietnam Center and Archive is now on Twitter at http://twitter.com/vietnamTTU.  Keep up with VNCA news, updates from events, and more right in your Twitter feed.  If you already have a Twitter account, go to http://twitter.com/vietnamTTU and click “follow.”

The Vietnam Center and Archive is now on Facebook. Become a fan and keep up with the latest happenings at the Center and Archive, find out about upcoming events, see pictures from past events, make comments, and connect with other Vietnam Center and Archive supporters.

To become a fan, you first need to have your own Facebook page. The go to the Vietnam Center and Archive Facebook page and click Become a Fan.

We have been informed that the Texas Tech University email servers (through which all email communication with the Vietnam Center & Archive and our staff pass through) have been experiencing problems with improperly blocking some email messages sent from outside the University system. When this occurs, senders are often not notified that their messages were blocked. TTU telecommunications staff are working on fixing the problem.

If you send a message to one of our departmental or staff email addresses and do not receive a response within a few days, please do not hesitate to contact us by phone (806-742-9010) to ensure that we received your email message.

We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may cause.

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.

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.

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 .

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