Message-Id: <199811121704.KAA18418@dns.ccit.arizona.edu> Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 11:59:48 -0500 From: Elizabeth Roderick <mailto:eroderic@VSLA.EDU> Subject: WWI War History Questionnaires To: mailto:IMAGELIB@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
________________________World War I History Commission Questionnaires Database is now available from the Library of Virginia Digital Library Program. _________________________
The Virginia War History Commission was established in 1919 to collect, assemble, edit, and publish information and materials about the contribution to World War I made by Virginia and Virginians.
The Commission gathered and published seven volumes of source material, including lists of Virginians honored for distinguished service and guides to newspaper clippings and wartime diaries and letters. It also prepared preliminary manuscripts for a narrative history of Virginia's role in the war. This history was never published. In June of 1928, all of the Commission's records were turned over to the Library of Virginia.
The Commission also conducted a survey of World War I veterans in Virginia through the use of a printed questionnaire.
The new World War I History Commission Questionnaires Database is a fully-searchable bibliographic database of approximately 15,000 records, one for each questionnaire respondent, accessible by surname, city/county, and race. Each record is linked via the MARC 856 field to digitized images of each page of the questionnaire, as well as any accompanying material. The image database contains approximately 120,000 questionnaire page images.
The URL for the database is http://eagle.vsla.edu/wwi. The URL for the main LVA Digital Library Program is http://image.vtls.com.
The bibliographic database was derived by VTLS, Inc. from a database created in the File Express format by Library of Virginia staff and the images of the questionnaires were scanned from 60 reels of microfilm held by the Library. VTLS, Inc. was also responsible for the document image linking component of the project.
Each questionnaire has four pages:
The first page records information about personal background, including the full name of the soldier; date and place of birth; name of mother and father (and their places of birth); race; religious affiliation; names of wife and children; fraternal orders and college fraternities; education; occupation prior to entering the service; name of employer; residence before and after time in service; present home address.
The second and third pages record details of the veteran's war record, including date of induction, rank, military branch and ID number; military company, regiment and division; where trained or stationed before going to Europe; port of embarkation and debarkation; experiences in action; citations for and details of distinguished services; details of any injuries; discharge; occupation after the war.
The fourth page contains several questions designed to elicit information about how the war affected the serviceman and how he perceived his experiences during the war. The questions deal with the effect of disabilities upon occupation and employment; the serviceman's attitude toward military service; the mental and physical effects of United States camp experiences and of overseas experiences; how the experience affected his religious beliefs; the effect of all of these experiences as contrasted with his state of mind before the war.
In many cases, the soldier submitted one or two photographs with the questionnaire, one taken before entering the service and another taken afterwards, often in uniform, signed and dated. Questionnaires with photographs are indicated in the database by a keyword-searchable note.
A separate two-page questionnaire was prepared for nurses. These questionnaires are also included in the database.
A TIFF viewer that can display TIFF Group IV Compression images is necessary to view the document images.
-- Elizabeth Roderick email (mailto:eroderic@leo.vsla.edu) Manager, Digital Library Program voice (804) 692-3761 Collection Management Services Division fax (804) 692-3771 The Library of Virginia 800 E. Broad Street Richmond, VA 23219***************************************************** http://leo.vsla.edu The LVA Digital Library Project *****************************************************