BLOGS

With more than 500,000 items, the Prints and Photographs Collection at the Library of Virginia provides an astonishing visual account of the commonwealth–from its beginnings to the present–through single items, such as one-of-a-kind daguerreotypes, to sprawling collections with many thousands of photos and related documentation, and everything in between: 19th- and 20th-century family albums, posters, scrapbooks, mixed ephemera, bookplates, postcards, lithographs, etchings, engravings, drawings, all manner of photographic prints, film and glass-plate negatives, 35mm slides, and images digitally inscribed onto compact discs.

Every box of records that arrives at the Library of Virginia (LVA) is full of possibilities. We never know what we are going to find in even the most seemingly mundane record series. A joy of our work is sharing with colleagues and friends the images, documents, and stories that pique our interest as we process the collection. The LVA’s archivists want to share these discoveries with those outside our professional circle.