Our General Policies
Receptivity and cooperation, therefore, have continued to be
our watchwords. With such institutions, for example, as Duke
University or the Library of Congress, (which happen to be our
two most formidable rivals for Virginia manuscripts) cooperation
is an easy and mutually profitable matter. Their manuscripts are
not only well housed and catalogued, but are generously made
available by photo-duplication to us and to individual students. A
similar cordial relationship obtains with scores of other institutions.
A happy example this year has been our exchange with the Regional
Collection of History at Cornell University of a group of New York
manuscripts and broadsides for a collection of Virginia Revolutionary
documents. Private owners who wish to retain ownership and
control of their papers are encouraged to place them here for safekeeping
and historical reference free of obligation. Such private depositors
are nearly always content to retain publication rights to
deposited material; and rare indeed is the depositor who withdraws
his deposit, or who refuses either access to manuscripts or publication
privileges to properly qualified researchers recommended by us.
Passive receptivity is not enough, however, and our potential donors
and depositors need to be kept informed of our interest by a vigorous
and continuous program of correspondence and travel. The current
results of this policy of cooperation and receptivity will, it is
hoped, be apparent in the report which follows this brief introduction.
