We at the Library of Virginia are always pleased to receive compliments
on our work, and we too wish that more of our holdings could be
instantaneously and inexpensively made available to everybody. That,
however, is not possible. The expense of digitizing documents in legible
form and of maintaining them online is very high, and our holdings
continue to grow. At last estimate, we had nearly 100,000,000 archival
and manuscript items, many of them in the form of large volumes with
hundreds of pages each.

No research library (not the Library of Congress, not the National
Archvies, not the wealthiest universities) has put more than a tiny
fraction of its holdings on line. As for microfilmed documents, the
Library of Virginia holds microfilm of virtually all extant county and
city deed, order, and will books through the Civil War, and for many
counties for later dates, as well. We also have hundreds of reels of
court documents from some counties and from state government agencies,
church and business records, personal papers, and other documents of
great value and interest.

As a person who spends nearly all my time researching aspects of
Virginia history, I am very grateful for all the assistance I can get
online, but I realize that research often requires a personal visit to a
repository, and I am confident that it always will.

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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