Hi Elizabeth,
It is mighty good to hear from you again.  I recall, with pleasuer and awe, how you guided the technical fortunes of VA-HIST in its growth days.

The project sounds interesting and needed, and like most things like this, I have absolutely no expertise, but at the same time have opinions.  Let me suggest you get in touch with Charles Irons who I believe is now at Elon College.  He received his PhD from UVa last June and for this last two years developed and managed the online site of the Cabell papers special collection (under Michael Plunkett).  I heard him describe what he was doing and why the collection itself was so important, and how it was breaking new ground to have the index of everything online, and images of many things available online.

My only other observation is to be careful of categorizing things too early into one area or another.  For example, something may have 'Civil War' written all over it, but may involve the role of women in 19th century Virginia.  My only suggestion here is to stick with some keywords (key categories) as far into the process as you can, then if it is necessary to pick only one, do it but leave the keywords there. 

Randy Cabell
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Elizabeth Roderick" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 1:56 PM
Subject: Need some research assistance with a project


> Greetings - I am coordinating a two-year project at the
> University of Virginia that is assessing all of the
> Library's Special Collections holdings (nearly 14,000
> collections). The project is funded by the Andrew W.
> Mellon Foundation, and the Virginia Historical Society is
> working on a similar project.
> 
> As part of our assessment, we are attempting to establish
> a "research value" for each collection, to assist with
> setting priorities for future preservation, conservation,
> and re-housing.
> 
> Specifically, we are attempting to identify how these
> collections support current and future "research trends"
> in numerous subject areas.
> 
> We are interested in the condition, quality, and quantity
> of our holdings that have received considerable prior
> attention, are gaining currency, or have the potential to
> attract significant researcher interest.
> 
> For the purposes of this project, a research trend is a
> specific area of study within an established academic
> discipline that is increasingly visible in journal and
> book publications, dissertations, and grants applied for
> and/or received.
> 
> While we are interested in research trends, broadly
> understood, we also want to pay special attention to the
> presence of those trends locally. We are attempting to
> develop methodologies for recognizing research trends.
> 
> I and my research assistant will be consulting
> dissertation proposals and publications (at UVA and
> elsewhere), journal and book publications, faculty
> publications (including books published by faculty at UVA
> over the past five years), and grant proposals. We will
> survey the table of contents for the five (5) top journals
> in each of the designated disciplines to identify trends
> in article publication. So that we are sure to identify
> the trends most salient to the evaluation of our
> collections, we will focus on those areas of study that
> correspond to our holdings.
> 
> At the end of the day, we will attempt to identify a
> causal link between research trends and usage. We want to
> be able to support our inference that the research trends
> we pinpoint will have a bearing on the collections?
> employment. We may gather similar, although possibly more
> limited, data on research trends (in the manner discussed
> above) for a five/ten year period five years ago. We will
> then look at the correlation between older trends and
> current usage. From there, we will make an inference about
> the directional relationship and make a case for the
> extrapolation we engage in when predicting future usage.
> 
> I would be interested in hearing from VA-HIST and VA-ROOTS
> subscribers about this project. Do you have any thoughts
> about how to identify research trends? How about for
> Virginia history and family history research? Are you
> working within other disciplines, and if so, do you have
> any thoughts about how to identify research trends in
> those areas?
> 
> Here are the broad subject areas we are using to classify
> our collections in the internal database we are creating.
> In addition to the broad headings, we are also adding
> qualifiers that identify materials in the collections that
> relate to Thomas Jefferson, UVA, Civil War, African
> Americans, Native Americans, and Women:
> 
> Arts, Architecture, Music and Humanities
> Business
> Civil Rights
> Education
> Genealogy and Family History
> Health and Medicine
> Legal
> Local and Urban History
> Military
> Politics
> Religion and Church History
> Sciences and Engineering
> Sports and Recreation
> Civil War
> Korean War
> Revolutionary War
> Spanish-American War
> Vietnam War
> War of 1812
> World War I
> World War II
> 
> I would be interested in any thoughts you might have about
> our approach, or insights into research trends you might
> have personally identified in any of our broad topics or
> our qualifiers.
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> Elizabeth
> 
> --
> Elizabeth Roderick, Director
> Mellon Special Collections Assessment Project
> The University of Virginia
> [log in to unmask]
> (434) 982-2980
> 
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