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oadSIDEthe magazine of theLIBRARY OF VIRGINIA2014 | ISSUE NO. 4librarian of virginiaSandra G. Treadwaylibrary board chairPeter E. Broadbent Jr.editorial boardJanice M. HathcockAnn E. HendersonGregg D. KimballJohn MetzeditorAnn E. Hendersongraphic designerAmy C. Winegardnerphotographic servicesPaige Stevens BuchbinderPierre CourtoisBen SteckcontributorsBarbara BatsonSonya ColemanMark HowellAudrey McElhinneyAdrienne RobertsonEmily J. SalmonbroadSIDE is published quarterly by theLibrary of Virginia. © 2014 Library of Virginia.All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole orin part without permission is prohibited.broadSIDE is funded by the Library ofVirginia Foundation and other special funds.the inside storyYesterday’s News Is IndispensableVirginia Chronicle and Chronicling America websites offera wealth of digital newspaper holdingsIt is often said that newspapers represent the first roughdraft of history. Certainly, anyone who has done researchin Virginia history from the mid-18th century onwardknows how indispensable newspapers are—from the first issue ofthe Virginia Gazette published in the colony in 1736 through thethousands of daily, weekly, and monthly papers that have followed.Today’s news may be tomorrow’s history, but if we don’t take careto collect and preserve these newspapers—both in print and intoday’s electronic versions—the valuable information they containcan be lost forever.Since its founding in 1823, the Library of Virginia hassubscribed to and collected as many newspapers as possible,published in all corners of the state. This effort to document Virginia’s past was greatlyenhanced in 1993 when the Library partnered with the Library of Congress and the NationalEndowment for the Humanities to establish the Virginia Newspaper Project. Supported withNEH funding, VNP staff conducted an exhaustive survey of repositories and newspaperarchives across the commonwealth to create a comprehensive list of every newspaper titleever published in the state, along with an inventory and location of all surviving copies. Thisinventory can be accessed on the Library’s website at www.lva.virginia.gov/public/vnp. Overthe years, as funding permitted, the VNP has conserved paper copies of these newspapersand then microfilmed them to ensure their preservation and ease of access.Today, the VNP has joined the National Digital Newspaper Program in an ambitiousinitiative to provide free access to text-searchable digital images of historical Americannewspapers. Our dream is one day to have all 2,500 Virginia titles in our collection availablein digital format. For now, however, we have started with newspapers that meet the criteria setby the NDNP, as well as selected special-interestOur dream is one day totitles for which we were able to secure funding.Our digital newspaper holdings are available onhave all 2,500 Virginiathe Library’s Virginia Chronicle website at www.virginiachronicle.com. Many can also be found ontitles in our collectionthe Library of Congress’s Chronicling America site(www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov).available in digital format.A feature added recently to Virginia Chronicleallows registered users to correct the mistakes sometimes found in automated transcriptionsof newspaper articles created by optical character recognition. I invite you to sign up tocontribute to improving the quality of this valuable digital resource. And if you know of anewspaper once published in Virginia that doesn’t appear in the VNP inventory, please let usknow. Even the first rough draft of history should be as complete as we can make it.Sincerely,inquiries | comments | address correctionsAnn E. Henderson, Editor, Broadside800 E. Broad St., Richmond, VA 23219ann.henderson@lva.virginia.gov804.692.3611Library of Virginia 804.692.3500Sandra G. Treadway, Librarian of VirginiaON THE COVERSlave Auction Flag. Courtesy of the South CarolinaHistorical Society. On display in the gallery of theLibrary of Virginia through May 30, 2015.