Virginia Room-Fairfax County Library
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
The Virginia Room, by Chuck Mauro (reproduced under Fair Use).
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
The Virginia Room's collection of photographs includes over 100,000 images, each indexed to assist researchers and some available digitally. The library's collection is especially strong with regard to the Civil War, with copies of Union and Confederate records. Historical newspapers in the collection, availaible on microfilm, date as far back as the colonial period and include The Virginia Gazette (1736-1780), the Pennsylvania Genealogical Catalogue (Chester County 1809-1870), and South Carolina newspapers (1732 - 1780). Researchers also have access to genealogy and other primary source databases when visiting the Virginia Room. As with other archives and special collections repositories, the holdings of the collection may be used on-site in the Virginia Room, on the second floor of the Fairfax County Public Library.
Among the manuscript collections in the library's holdings, many of which have archival finding aids online, are personal papers, organizational records, scrapbooks, cemetery records, oral histories, school yearbooks, city directories and telephone books, and government documents. Notable manuscripts include papers by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Mason. Library staff maintain research guides and subject files to aid researchers in their work, particularly in genealogy.
The Virginia Room is supported by the Friends of the Virginia Room volunteer group, founded in 2009.
Sources
City of Fairfax Regional Library. Virginia Room brochure [archived]. January 2012. Accessed November 11th 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20141105222013/https://www.fxva.com/includes/media/docs/virginiaroombrochure.pdf.
City of Fairfax Regional Library. Library Branch Info: Virginia Room. 2019. Accessed November 11th 2019. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/virginia-room.
https://www.northernvirginiamag.com/things-to-do/travel/2010/03/18/community-guide-fairfax/