Longtime Vietnam Center and Archive staff member Victoria Lovelady has accepted an exciting new job opportunity with Covenant Health Systems here in Lubbock begining in February.  Victoria started with the Archive in 2001 as a temp worker digitizing documents for the Virtual Vietnam Archive.  She was soon hired on full-time as an Archival Specialist.  Eventually she was placed in charge of our microfilm digitzation project, which she oversaw for a number of years.  Since 2008, Victoria has been the Communications Coordinator for the Vietnam Center and Archive, where she produced all of the Center and Archive’s print material, including a redesigned brochure and folder, numerous items for our 20th Anniversary Celebration, and a redesigned Friends of the Vietnam Center Newsletter, for which she won the Association for Women in Communications (AWC) 2009 National Clarion Award for Most Improved Newsletter (Print).

Victoria will be joining Covenant Health Systems as their new Internet Marketing Coordinator.  For the past nine years she has been an invaluable member of the Vietnam Center and Archive staff and will be greatly missed.  We wish her the best of luck in her new job!

The Vietnam Archive has a collection of over 12,000 Marine Corps records covering after-action reports, command chronologies and other documents for most of the Marine units serving in Vietnam.  These records,shared with the archive by the Marine Corps History Division, are a valuable resource for anyone researching the Marines in the Vietnam War. 

These records have been available in the Virtual Vietnam Archive for many years.  However, many of the records were incorrectly labeled or could only be found in the database using specialized terms.  After extensive database work, the Vietnam Archive archivists have fixed the errors and removed the specialized jargon terms so that the records are much easier to locate. 

In addition to these fixes, the documents themselves are now fully word-searchable.  The Vietnam Archive has undertaken a project to convert all of the over 3 million pages of digitized documents in the Virtual Vietnam Archive into word-searchable PDFs, and the conversion of the Marine Corps documents is now complete. Please note that the quality of the word-search capability is dependent on a number of factors, including the quality of the original.  The worse the condition of the original scan, the lower the accuracy of the word-search function.  To search for words within the PDF’s (in Adobe Reader), simply open the PDF, hold down the Ctrl key and F key and type in your keyword and hit enter.  If the word is in the document, you will be taken to the page where the word is located, and the word will be highlighed with color – a great timesaving device.

As PDFs are converted into the word-searchable format, some users may be required to update to newer versions of their PDF readers.  Versions of Adobe Reader older than Version 6 will not be able to access the modified PDFs, or PDFs newly added to the Virtual Archive.  Adobe Reader can be downloaded free from the Adobe website – http://get.adobe.com/reader/?promoid=BUIGO

If you have not seen the Marine Corps records check out the new and improved version in the Virtual Archive. They are worth a look.

Tet, the Vietnamese New Year
Friday, February 4th
3:00-5:00 pm
The International Cultural Center’s Hall of Nations, Texas Tech University Campus 

This is a free event open to the public.

Traditional Vietnamese food will be served. A special presentation will be given by the Vietnamese Student Association at Texas Tech. Please join us and learn more about the rich heritage and culture that makes Vietnam so remarkable.

February 3, 2011 ushers in the Lunar Year of the Cat. In Vietnam, one of 12 animals of the zodiac represents each year. The cat symbolizes sensitivity, gentleness and kindness. It is said that people born in the year of the cat are compassionate, ambitious and sentimental, but they are often very vulnerable to opportunistic and unscrupulous people.

The Vietnamese people regard Tet as their most important holiday. Food preparation for Tet is very time consuming and often requires days of cooking and, prior to the celebrations, people clean, paint, and decorate their homes. People avoid cleaning during Tet so that good luck will not be “swept away.”

We hope you will be able to join us on February 4, 2011 as we celebrate this special event!

For more information, please call (806) 742-3742 or visit www.vietnam.ttu.edu

Link to event flyer: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/events/tet/tet2011.pdf

The Summer/Fall issue of the Friends of the Vietnam Center newsletter is available for download on our website.  Articles include information about the Texas Tech student trip to Southeast Asia, a call for papers for our Seventh Triennial Vietnam Symposium, an update on the Graffiti Project, and more.

If you would like to receive a full color printed version of this newsletter in your mailbox, please consider becoming a friend of the Vietnam Center.  Membership information can be found at this link.

Links:

Newsletters: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/friends/newsletters.php

Membership Information: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/friends/

The Vietnam Center and Archive was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Gerald Hickey in Chicago, Illinois on November 9, 2010.  Hickey was a prominent anthropologist who was best known for his work with Montagnard tribes in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  His first work in Vietnam was with Michigan State University from 1956-1959 to help rural South Vietnamese develop a modern nation-state.  During this time he particularly became interested in working with the Montagnards.  In fact, Hickey returned to Vietnam in 1964 as an employee of the RAND Corporation where he spent nine years tirelessly fighting for improved political rights and economic conditions for the Montagnards.

We are proud to have close to 20 linear feet of material at the Vietnam Center and Archive in the Gerald Hickey Collection to include photographs, textiles, swords, and carvings as well as many rare books on Montagnard culture in French, Vietnamese, and English.  More than just being an important donor to the Vietnam Center and Archive, Gerald Hickey was a good friend.  He will be greatly missed.

Hickey’s Funeral Mass will be held at 10:00 AM on Saturday, November 13 at Immaculate Conception Church, 1415 N. North Park, Chicago, Illinois.  Visitation will begin at 9:00 AM and last until the beginning of Mass.

For more information about Gerald Hickey including two issues of Friends of the Vietnam Center featuring articles on him and a list of the contents in his collection at the Vietnam Center and Archive, please view the following links:

Summer/Fall 2008 Issue of Friends of the Vietnam Center

Summer/Fall 2010 Issue of Friends of the Vietnam Center

Link to the contents of the Gerald Hickey Collection

Today is the Marine Corps 235th birthday.  Congratulations and many happy returns, U.S. Marine Corps!  We have put together a small exhibit of Marine-related materials from our collection.  Click here to see the exhibit.

Link:

http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/exhibits/marines/

The Navy turns 235 today!  We have put together a small exhibit of Navy related items from our collection.  Please click here to enjoy the exhibit.  From the staff of the Vietnam Center & Archive, happy happy birthday Navy!

Link: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/exhibits/navy/

**The deadline for proposals has been extended to December 1, 2010** 

The Seventh Triennial Vietnam Symposium will take place on March 10-12, 2011, and will be held at the brand new Overton Hotel and Convention Center in Lubbock, Texas.

Vietnam Center symposia are open to presentations that examine any and all aspects of the United States involvement in Southeast Asia. This includes activities before, during, and after the war in Vietnam. Papers can examine any aspect of the experience to include early interaction and diplomacy, activities in theater during the war, the international dimensions of the war for all sides involved, activities in the US and elsewhere in support of or in opposition to the war, postwar issues, etc.

We encourage anyone interested in presenting a paper to submit a one page proposal and a short CV for consideration. As always, graduate students are highly encouraged to submit proposals. Please format proposals to resemble an abstract to include the author’s name, title/affiliation, and contact information, along with proposed title, thesis/purpose, and main points. Please limit proposal length to a single page and submit them electronically to VietnamCenterConference@ttu.edu. If you make an email submission but do not receive notification of receipt within seven days, please call 806-742-3742 and ask for Steve Maxner, Ph.D., Director, Vietnam Center and Archive.

The deadline for submitting proposals is December 1st, 2010.

For more information, please visit www.vietnam.ttu.edu/events/2011_Symposium/

Thank you and we look forward to you joining us for this event.

• Submit Proposal: VietnamCenterConference@ttu.edu

The US Air Force turns 63 today, and the Vietnam Center and Archive staff would like to wish the Air Force a very happy birthday.  We have put together this small exhibit of Air Force related items from the collections of the Vietnam Archive for everyone to enjoy.

Happy Birthday US Air Force Online Exhibit

September 1 is the beginning of the Vietnam Archive’s fiscal year and we have raised our photocopying fees and rights and reproduction prices.  To see a copy of our new prices click here.

The cost of providing these services has gone up over the years and, while we try to keep our prices to a minimum, we have raised our fees to cover these increased costs.  Any order received on September 1, 2010 forward will be subject to the new prices.