VCRP Glossary

Glossary of terms associated with Survey Reports of the Virginia Colonial

• Agent: A VCRP researcher sent to foreign libraries, archives, and other institutions to identify (and describe for microfilming) manuscripts that contain information about Virginia history between l607 and 1783.
• Class: The element in the heading of each Survey Report used by the agents to identify manuscripts and manuscript collections according to the cataloging system in use at each foreign repository.
• Date: The element in the heading of each Survey Report used by the agents to identify the dates, approximate dates, or inclusive date range of the manuscripts examined and described by the agent in that report.
• Depository: The element in the heading of each Survey Report used by the agents to identify the foreign repository in which manuscripts were examined for that report.
• Description: The final portion of each Survey Report where the agent typed an explanation of the manuscripts examined in the foreign repository for that report. Descriptions derive from an agent's firsthand examination of the documents themselves rather than finding aids.
• Exposures: The element in the heading of each Survey Report used by the agents to estimate the number of frames of microfilm needed to photograph the Virginia-related manuscript examined by the agent for that report.
• New Survey Report number: The number stamped at the upper right corner of each Survey Report. New Survey Report numbers identify all 14,704 VCRP Survey Reports according to the numbering sequence employed since 1972. (Reports created between 1955 and 1972 have both old Survey Report numbers (typed) and new Survey Report numbers (stamped).
• Old Survey Report number: The number typed at the upper right of some Survey Reports that identified reports according to the numbering sequence used from 1955 until 1972 by the VCRP's participating institutions. Although replaced by new Survey Report numbers after 1972, old Survey Report numbers continued in use at some of the participating institutions, remain visible on the reports themselves, and were sometimes mentioned in other Survey Reports or in citations and footnotes to scholarship based on VCRP materials.
• Reel number: The element in the heading of each Survey Report that identifies the cardinal number assigned in the United States to VCRP microfilm reels ordered and shipped by the agents. The numbers following the label Reel in the database refer to 963 reels of VCRP microfilm in existence as of January 1996. The most complete and accurate record of the microfilm reels is found in A Key to Survey Reports and Microfilm of the Virginia Colonial Records Project, 2 vols. (Richmond, 1990).
• References: An element in the heading of each Survey Report that identifies published or other finding aids in foreign repositories that assisted an agent in discovering Virginia-related material in those collections.
• Survey Report: A typewritten report prepared by the agent who examined manuscripts about colonial Virginia in collections of foreign repositories. The 14,704 Survey Reports in existence as of January 1996 total more than twenty-eight thousand typed pages.
• Survey Report number: See New Survey Report number and Old Survey Report number.
• Title: An element in the heading of each Survey Report created by the agent to identify or summarize the contents of the particular report.
• VCRP: Virginia Colonial Records Project.