July 2017 Newsletter

New Library of Virginia Reading Room Hours

The Library of Virginia’s reading rooms will again be open six days a week, Monday through Saturday, beginning Saturday, July 8, 2017. A list of holiday or special event closings for the remainder of the year can be found on the calendar of events on the Library’s website at www.lva.virginia.gov/news/calendar.asp.

Vote Now for Your Favorite Books in the 14th Annual People's Choice Awards

Voting is now open for the Library of Virginia’s 14th Annual People’s Choice Awards. An independent panel of judges will select the finalists and winners of the Library’s juried Literary Awards, but readers are invited to pick the People’s Choice winners from among five works of fiction and nonfiction published in 2016.

The People’s Choice fiction finalists are: Nine Island by Jane Alison; The Stargazer’s Sister by Carrie Brown; The Whistler by John Grisham; Glory over Everything by Kathleen Grissom; and As Close to Us as Breathing by Elizabeth Poliner.

The People’s Choice nonfiction finalists are: The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman; Truevine by Beth Macy; Washington's Immortals by Patrick K. O’Donnell; Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly; and Dimestore: A Writer’s Life by Lee Smith.

Readers may vote online at the Library of Virginia’s website and by paper ballot (also available to print from the website). Voting will close on July 15 and the winners will be announced at the Library’s Literary Awards Celebration on October 14, 2017.

Ancestry for Virginians

Ancestry for Virginians is a new resource made possible through a partnership between the Library and the popular family history site Ancestry.com. Virginians are now able to access Library of Virginia materials currently hosted by Ancestry.com free of charge. Among the records that are available through this site are birth and death records (1912–2014), marriage records (1936–2014), and divorce records (1918–2014). Access to these materials is through Find It Virginia. To learn more about this new resource and the digital collections available to researchers on the Library’s Virginia Memory website, see www.lva.virginia.gov/news/press/AncestryAtLVA.pdf.

Congratulations to Mary Clark

Mary Sine Clark, director of acquisitions and access management at the Library of Virginia, has been named to a three-year term on the Depository Library Council, an advisory committee that provides advice and recommendations to the director of the U.S. Government Publishing Office on matters relating to the indexing, classification, cataloging, distribution, format, storage, utilization, and administration of material managed under the Federal Depository Library program. The Library of Virginia is an active participant in the federal depository program, and under Mary Clark’s direction, it has cataloged all historical federal documents in the collection and transitioned to a largely digital program.

Powhatan Public Library Receives National Award

The National Association of Counties has named the Powhatan County Public Library as one of the recipients of its 2017 Achievement Awards for the library’s Passport to Summer Reading Program. The awards recognize innovative, effective county government programs that enhance services for residents. This outstanding summer reading program represents a collaboration between the library and Powhatan County’s public schools and is made possible in part with federal funds through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.