University of Virginia Library

Section K. Ephemerae.

Virginia libraries are quite normal in having a large amount
of pamphlet material and in being baffled by the problem of securing
at the same time both adequate and inexpensive handling.
At the University of Virginia Library a staff committee of five
members has recently reviewed the whole subject and has courage
ously proposed a method aiming at preservation, accessibility, and
economy. This method is being given a thorough trial with an extensive
general collection as its material. The University
Library also has large special collections in biology, classics,

forestry, medicine, optics, public administration, and rural
social economics.

Other important pamphlet collections are located at the
libraries of Sweet Briar College, the College of William and Mary,
the State Teachers College at East Radford, and at Hampton Institute.
The largest special collection is probably at the Union
Theological Seminary in Richmond. This has been accumulating for
130 years, numbers approximately 20,000 items, and the initial
steps in the work of organization as undertaken by the present
Librarian indicate that some of its items are excessively rare
and that the collection as a whole probably will constitute one
of the most valuable and significant resources of that library.

Among the libraries which have files of clippings are Hampton
Institute (587 books, on the Negro), Petersburg Public, Randolph-Macon
Woman's College (on the College), Roanoke Public (on
Roanoke and Virginia), University of Virginia, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute, the State Library (4,000 pieces on 3,000 subjects),
and William and Mary (on Williamsburg and the College).

The collector's instinct seems to thrive among librarians,
the genus Ephemerae revealing sundry interesting examples. Of
course the World War inspired many collections of world war
printed materials. In Virginia the University of Richmond, the
State Teachers College at Harrisonburg, the Virginia Polytechnic
Institute, and the State Library have such collections. The sets
of war posters are perhaps the most important. Various programmes
are preserved at Randolph-Macon Woman's College, the State Library,
William and Mary, and the University of Virginia; and there are
collections of bookplates at the Roanoke Public Library, at the
College of William and Mary, and the State Library. The College
of William and Mary has a file of about 2,000 legal briefs.
This library also has a collection of charts.

A variety of nautical charts and a collection of plans and
lines of vessels may be found at the Mariners' Museum; and at
the Public Administration Library at the University of Virginia
there is a considerable number of charts, maps, and graphs covering
the public administration field, local, national, and foreign.
The State Library has an interesting group of representative
ballots; it has also gathered stamps, autographs, and currency,
the last item including Virginia and American colonial currency
and a considerable number of Civil War and Confederate specimens.