Don,
As a frequent user of the volumes (in addition to having a hand in
publishing them long ago) I find them useful in two ways - even though my
first resort is to the LVA online catalogue.
First, the microfilm reel numbers are not always found on the survey reports
- in fact in my recent experience they are more often absent than present.
So when I go to use the film at LVA (or VHS, UVA, or CW), I'll bring the
printed page(s) from the Survey Report I consulted on line at home, but I
need to look up the reel number in order to find the material I'm seeking.
Second, as I described in the Introduction, for more than a century prior to
the inception of the Virginia Colonial Records Project in the 1950s, British
and American scholars and repositories published a slew of abstracts,
calendars, and guides to records about America and Virginia in British
institutions - all of them use one of the various familiar forms of citation
to British records - C.O. classes and numbers for the Colonial Office at the
Public Record Office, for example, or Additional Manuscript numbers for
stuff at the British [formerly Museum] Library, etc. One also finds these
citations in scholarly monographs, journal articles, bibliographies and the
like.
SO, if you're trying to track down a manuscript that you've found in an old
footnote or any number of published abstracts, calendars, or guides (many of
which I listed in the Introduction, those columns of numbers can be the
essential key that gets you from an antiquated citation to the correct
survey report and microfilm reel. (Hence my comparison of the Key to Survey
Reports to the Rosetta Stone.)
Or - equally useful sometimes - that can confirm that for whatever
reason (typically because it was not deemed Virginia-related) the material
you're seeking from an old citation or guide was not filmed and needs to be
pursued elsewhere.
IMHO, this second reason is cause for institutions that support serious
scholarship to keep the Key rather than discard it . . . but of course if
you have patrons who use VCRP film via inter-library loan, the first reason
counts, too.
All best,
Jon
Jon Kukla
________________
www.JonKukla.com <http://www.jonkukla.com/>
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 4:56 PM, Wilson, Donald L <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> I need some advice from the list. In 1990, the Virginia State Library
> and Archives (its title at that time) published A Key to Survey Reports
> and Microfilm of the Virginia Colonial Records Project, in two volumes.
> It is a tabulation of British record groups and series, with cross
> references to Survey Report numbers and the microfilm reels they appear
> on.
>
> Now that the Virginia Colonial Records Project index has been put on the
> Library of Virginia's website, it looks to me as if every piece of
> information in the books is now online and searchable: The repository
> reference, the old and new Survey Report numbers, and the microfilm reel
> number, in addition to any subject tracings related to each reference.
> In light of that, is there any good reason to retain the bound volumes
> in our collection?
>
> Donald L. Wilson, Virginiana Librarian,
> Ruth E. Lloyd Information Center
> for Genealogy and Local History (RELIC),
> Prince William Public Library System,
> Bull Run Regional Library,
> 8051 Ashton Avenue, Manassas, VA 20110-2892
> 703-792-4540 www.pwcgov.org/library/relic
>
>
>
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