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Nine authors are the finalists for the Library of Virginia’s 15th Annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards honoring Virginia authors or, in the case of nonfiction, works on a Virginia subject. Two additional authors will receive honorable mentions. The finalists were chosen by an independent panel of judges from more than 130 books nominated for the awards. The winners in each category will be selected from among these finalists and announced at a gala celebration on October 20, 2012, at the Library of Virginia. Poetry
The judges also selected an honorable mention in the poetry category: Nine Acres by Nathaniel Perry. Fiction
The judges also selected an honorable mention in the fiction category: Mercy Creek by Matt Matthews. Nonfiction
The Library of Virginia’s annual literary awards were first given in 1998 to recognize the best books published the previous year by a Virginia author or, in the case of nonfiction, on a Virginia theme. The winners in each of the three categories receive a monetary prize of $3,000. This year’s finalists include David Huddle, who previously has been a finalist in both the poetry and fiction categories, and poet David Wojahn, who won the Weinstein Poetry Prize in 2008. Nonfiction finalist Tony Horwitz won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting and worked as a staff writer for The New Yorker before becoming a full-time author. The finalists for the 2012 awards include authors who have received numerous honors including the Charles C. Eldredge Prize; Guggenheim, NEA, and Lyndhurst fellowships; the Lenore Marshall Award; and inclusion in the Fellowship of Southern Writers The winners of the fiction, nonfiction, and poetry awards will be announced on Saturday, October 20, 2012, at the 15th Annual Library of Virginia Awards Celebration Honoring Virginia Authors & Friends. This gala event, sponsored by Dominion, attracts authors, publishers, and those who enjoy the written word. Award-winning author Adriana Trigiani will again serve as host for this event. Tom Robbins will be honored this year as the recipient of the Literary Lifetime Achievement Award. The winners of the People’s Choice Award, the Weinstein Poetry Prize, and the Whitney & Scott Cardozo Award for Children’s Literature also will be announced that evening. For ticket information, please call 804-356-1928. |
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The Library of Virginia has nominated Virginia’s 1786 Act for Establishing Religious Freedom for consideration as one of Virginia’s 2012 Top 10 Endangered Artifacts. Virginia’s Top Ten Endangered Artifacts program is designed to create awareness of the importance of preserving artifacts in care at museums, libraries, and archives throughout the commonwealth and in the District of Columbia. Twenty-one institutions have nominated items that they believe tell a significant story and deserve to be recognized on this prestigious “Top 10 List.” The Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, commonly known as the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, is one of the most important laws that the assembly ever adopted. Its passage concluded a ten-year campaign in Virginia to disestablish the Church of England, which had been the official state church of the colony since the first English settlers arrived in 1607. Baptists led the campaign, joined by Presbyterians and others during the American Revolution, which over time became a push to provide full freedom of religious belief and practice to all Virginians, including Catholics, Jews, and other people who were not Protestant Christians. The Virginia law was one of the sources that Congress drew on when drafting the Bill of Rights in 1789, which granted the free exercise of religion and prohibited Congress from abridging the freedom of religion. Its guarantees became part of the second Virginia Constitution that was adopted in 1830. The Act for Establishing Religious Freedom will be cleaned, flattened, remounted, and reframed so that both sides of the parchment are visible. The original will be framed between two pieces of Plexiglas so that it can be viewed from both the front and back while remaining enclosed. Public voting for the Top Ten Endangered Artifacts runs through August 29. Virginia’s Top 10 Endangered Artifacts program showcases the importance of Virginia’s diverse history, heritage, and culture and the role that artifacts and archival materials play in telling those stories. This fun and educational project enables all citizens to take part in supporting the institutions that are entrusted with caring for our communities’ treasures. Final nominations will be reviewed by an independent panel of collections and conservation experts, and the honorees will be announced in September 2012. |
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Taking place from October 17 through October 20 and anchored by the popular James Rivers Writers Conference and the elegant Library of Virginia Literary Awards Celebration, the 2012 Virginia Literary Festival celebrates Virginia’s rich literary resources with a series of events aimed at diverse literary audiences. The events are varied and include a writing workshop for teens, a movie screening, an evening exploring the relationship between poetry and the visual arts, and a luncheon with the venerable writer Tom Robbins. For a listing of programs and registration information, visit http://www.literaryva.com/events.html. "We are delighted to be supporting this festival in its second year," said Mary Beth McIntire, executive director of the Library of Virginia Foundation. "It’s important to note that all of these events are open to the community, and a majority of them are free of charge or have a modest registration fee. The philosophy behind the festival is to make it very accessible to a wide audience." |
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Access Exemplary Reference Resources Online from Home! Library of Virginia users now have free remote access to two exemplary reference resources from Oxford University Press. Oxford English Dictionary (OED) – This title is considered to be the definitive guide to the English language, and provides the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words, past and present, from across the English-speaking world. It covers more than 1,000 years of English language. The OED is different from dictionaries of current English, which focus on present-day meanings. In addition to current meanings, the OED also offers the history of individual words, and of the language—traced through 3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to films scripts and cookery books. Oxford Reference Online Premium Collection – This database brings together language and subject reference works into a single cross-searchable resource. It provides access to 224 reference publications, including a wide range of titles from the popular Oxford Companion and Oxford Dictionaries series, such as the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Subjects covered include architecture, economics, food and drink, history, law, maps, military history, place names, and much more. You may be surprised by what you find here! Your Library of Virginia library card is your key to exploring these wonderful resources. Stop by the Library to get a card today and visit the Library’s Using the Collections page to begin your research. –submitted by Lisa Wehrmann, Public Services and Outreach |
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The Library of Virginia's Records Analysis Services section is introducing a new training initiative to provide one-day, interactive records management workshops in six different regions of the commonwealth. The full-day workshops will cover requirements of the Virginia Public Records Act, responsibilities of a records officer and strategies for fulfilling that role, records disposition, and electronic records issues such as reformatting and e-mail management. The workshops are open to all local and state government employees and elected officials who deal with records management issues. The workshops will run from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, with registration beginning at 8:30 AM. Registration is $30 and includes a boxed lunch and light refreshments. To register for a workshop, click on http://host5.evanced.info/lva/evanced/eventcalendar.asp, select the month ("Sep" or "Oct"), and then click on the "Records Management Road Show" calendar link on your preferred workshop date. September Workshops: Roanoke Area Greenfield Education and Training Center Auditorium Southwest Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center Shenandoah Valley Plecker Workforce Center – P126 A & B October Workshops: Central Virginia Nicholas Center – Chester Campus Auditorium Tidewater Peninsula Workforce Development Center – Rooms 1301–1303 Northern Virginia Daniel Technology Center – Room 104A |
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The Library of Virginia will kick off Archives Month in style on October 1 by offering Where History Begins: Celebrating Our Successes, a workshop for local historical societies. Participants will learn strategies for planning and completing successful projects, evaluating and working effectively with their collections, identifying grant opportunities and partnerships, and building support for their organizations. The day-long workshop will feature concurrent sessions in the morning and afternoon, a presentation on a successful collaborative local history preservation project, and tours of Virginia’s storied archives. Among the session topics will be: Stories of Virginia Found in the Chancery Records, the Civil War 150 Legacy Project, What Is a Public Record?, Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names, and Care and Preservation of Photographs. The workshop fee is $25, which will include lunch. A limited number of travel stipends are available for those attending from societies located more than 150 miles to Richmond. Registration begins August 6 and closes September 17. For information on the travel stipend or reserving hotel rooms at the conference rate, please call 804-692-3605. To register, visit: libva.com/sch. The workshop is sponsored by the Virginia State Historical Advisory Board and made possible by a generous State and National Archival Partnership (SNAP) grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. |
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The Friends of the Virginia State Archives will present the 13th annual Richard Slatten Lecture as part of its annual meeting on Saturday, September 22, 2012, at the Library of Virginia, with registration beginning at 8:30 AM. Lloyd deWitt Bockstruck, nationally known genealogist, author, lecturer, and educator, will deliver four lectures that focus on research, discovery, and interpretation in genealogical research. From 1979 until 2009, Bockstruck was the supervisor of the Genealogy Section of the Dallas Public Library, named one of the “Top 10 Public Libraries for Genealogists” in the country by Family Tree Magazine. Bockstruck was named a fellow of the National Genealogical Society in 1992 and was awarded the first annual Filby Prize for Genealogical Librarianship by the NGS in 1999. He is easily the most sought-after lecturer for annual seminars of local and state genealogical societies, having addressed these groups in 37 states and spoken at annual conferences of the National Genealogical Society and the Federation of Genealogical Societies. Since 1974, he has been a faculty member of the Samford University Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research. Bockstruck has authored numerous books and articles. From 1991 until his retirement in 2009, he wrote the Family Tree column in the Dallas Morning News. His most recent book is the massive Revolutionary War Pensions Awarded by State Governments 1775–1874, the General and Federal Governments Prior to 1814, and by Private Acts of Congress to 1905 (2011). He is also well known to Virginians as the author of Virginia Colonial Soldiers (1988). The deadline for registration is September 17. The cost for FSVA members is $35, nonmembers $50. Checks should be made payable to Friends of the Virginia State Archives and mailed to P.O. Box 4804, Richmond, VA 23220. For more information, please contact Anne Brown (annetaylorb@aol.com) or e-mail SlattenLecture2012@gmail.com. –submitted by Conley L. Edwards, former Virginia State Archivist |
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The Library of Virginia and Library Ideas, LLC, are pleased to announce a statewide agreement to provide all public libraries in Virginia with access to a collection of always-available e-books. The service, called Freading (for free reading) eBooks, is offered by the Library of Virginia through funding provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and should be available at local libraries in September. Library Ideas, LLC, is a global media company focused on libraries. The Freading eBooks service allows each library to start with an eBook collection of 20,000 titles from 200 publishers, with new additions coming each week. Workman, Algonquin, Kensington, Sterling, Sourcebooks, and Andrews McMeel are just some of the participating publishing houses. Public library cardholders will be able to download thousands of eBooks for use on a variety of devices including eReaders, tablets, smartphones, and PCs. The service offers unlimited, simultaneous access to all titles, so there is no waiting for another user to return a title before a patron can borrow it. Each Virginia public library has been allocated a number of pre-paid downloads. Libraries may choose to purchase additional downloads from Library Ideas at their own expense. The Freading eBook service uses Adobe Digital Editions, the same basic software platform that most vendors use (including OverDrive), so that patrons will be familiar with the technical experience. |
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The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce that the Circuit Court Records Grant Review Board has awarded 32 grant projects totaling $218,465 to local circuit courts. The board is comprised of six members: four circuit court clerks, appointed annually by the president of the Virginia Court Clerks' Association; and two staff members from the Library of Virginia, currently the State Archivist and the Local Records Program Manager. The board determined that the item conservation category was its first priority for funding. The board reduced the number of items being conserved in this category by ranking the relative importance and condition of each volume submitted for consideration. As a result, requests from several localities were cumulatively adjusted downward by $257,166. Thirty grants were given for item conservation, one for reformatting, and one for the purchase of a plat cabinet. The Circuit Court Records Preservation Program is celebrating 20 years of providing grant funding to the commonwealths’ circuit courts. With these most recent awards, the program has now distributed more than $16 million through more than 1,100 grants to preserve and make available the documentary heritage of local circuit courts. Through this innovative program, the fabric of our history is being saved one grant at a time. The Circuit Court Records Preservation Program is a statewide initiative, funded through a $1.50 fee that is included with the cost of recording land transactions and judgments in the circuit courts. The Circuit Court Records Preservation Program provides resources to help preserve and make accessible permanent circuit court records. For a list of projects receiving grants, visit http://www.lva.virginia.gov/about/staff/meetings/CCRPminutes_2012-05-24.pdf |
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At its annual meeting in June the State Library Board approved the schedule for its July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2013, meetings. The 15-member Library Board will meet at the Library of Virginia, 800 East Broad Street, in Richmond on: September 24, 2012; January 14, 2013; April 8, 2013; and June 24, 2013. Meetings of the board are open to the public. |
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Susan Hildreth, director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, visited several Richmond museums and cultural attractions, including the Library of Virginia, on July 24 and 25. Hildreth, who was appointed to head IMLS by President Obama in 2010, was in Richmond for private visit. Librarian of Virginia Sandra G. Treadway took Hildreth and Library of Virginia Foundation Board member Kate Duval on a tour of the Library, including the Library’s conservation lab and public reading rooms. Hildreth then met with staff involved in programs supported with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The conversation focused on the organization of public libraries in Virginia, use of Library Service and Technology Act Funding, digital projects, and the future trends in library services. Hildreth joined IMLS after serving two years as head of the Seattle Public Library. Prior to that she served as state librarian of California. Previously, Hildreth was at the San Francisco Public Library, where she served as deputy director and then city librarian. Her background also includes five years as deputy library director at the Sacramento Public Library, several years as Placer County's head librarian, and four years as library director for the Benicia Public Library, all in California. She began her career as a branch librarian at the Edison Township Library in New Jersey. The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation's 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. |
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