University of Virginia Library

Transmigration of Virginia Manuscripts

Recent widespread controversy over the "transmigration of
Virginia manuscripts" to other states has involved criticism in some
quarters of the collecting policies of out-of-state institutions. It is
indeed true that among the half dozen regional collections in the
South of more than local significance, there are some which appear
in the past to have concentrated on the collecting of Virginiana to
the apparent relative neglect of their own states. To Virginians,
however, such interest should not appear altogether unreasonable.
At the University of Virginia Library, oldest and largest manuscripts
repository in the Southern states, we have found the out-of-state
competition for Virginia material both stimulating and helpful in
several ways to our own collecting.

For the reassurance of those who have been worried unduly
by the belated agitation, it is certainly safe to say that for at least
a decade the annual accessions of Virginia manuscripts to this
Virginia library alone have greatly exceeded in quantity the total
acquisitions of such Virginia material by all out-of-state agencies
combined. Even so, not enough collecting has been done by public
institutions either inside or outside of Virginia, and too often
also truly monumental manuscripts, the inheritance of all our
people, emerge for a moment from obscurity, only to pass from the
auction block again into what is sometimes complete inaccessibility
in private hands. The competition, however, which we do fear is
that of destructive elements, not the constructive competition of institutions,

or even necessarily of individuals, which happen to be
located beyond the boundaries of this Commonwealth. Research
libraries, such as the University's, are the logical depository of
all manner of manuscripts, as well as of printed works. Here, protected
from fire, rats, and decay; from wind, rain, dust, and heat;
from industrious housemaids and careless stamp collectors, the
neglected family letters that tell the story of times past are safely
kept and made available for research.