Universal Access
Special Collections and University Archives is currently open Monday-Friday from 8am to 5pm.
Appointments are not required, but strongly encouraged (**see below)
Appointments can be made by visiting the SCUA Seat Reservation page (instructions are included on this page)
Virtual reference help remains available at specref@vt.edu or by phone at 540-231-6308
**By making an appointment, you will help us limit the number of researchers using our Reading Room at any one time for health and safety; guarantee you a seat at the requested time; and help us plan for your visit, for example, making sure the materials needed are on site and available.
Email: specref@vt.edu
Phone: 540-231-6308
Twitter: @VT_SCUA
Information for Visitors
Our website
Our digital collections
Our blog
Our LibGuides
Virginia Tech acknowledges that we live and work on the Tutelo / Monacan People’s homeland, and we recognize their continued relationships with their lands and waterways. We further acknowledge that the Morrill Land-Grant College Act (1862) enabled the commonwealth of Virginia to finance and found Virginia Tech through the forced removal of Native Nations from their lands in western territories. We understand that honoring Native Peoples without explicit material commitments falls short of our institutional responsibilities. Through sustained, transparent, and meaningful engagement with the Tutelo / Monacan Peoples, and other Native Nations, we commit to changing the trajectory of Virginia Tech's history by increasing Indigenous student, staff, and faculty recruitment and retention, diversifying course offerings, and meeting the growing needs of all Virginia tribes and supporting their sovereignty.
Virginia Tech acknowledges that its Blacksburg campus sits partly on land that was previously the site of the Smithfield and Solitude Plantations, owned by members of the Preston family. Between the 1770s and the 1860s, the Prestons and other local White families that owned parcels of what became Virginia Tech also owned hundreds of enslaved people. We acknowledge that enslaved Black people generated wealth that financed the predecessor institution to Virginia Tech, the Preston and Olin Institute, and they also worked on construction of its building. Not until 1953, however, was the first Black student permitted to enroll. Through InclusiveVT, the institutional and individual commitment to Ut Prosim (that I may serve) in the spirit of community, diversity, and excellence, we commit to advancing a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community.
Full and short versions of the acknowledgements can be found on InclusiveVT's website.
This guide was adapted with permission from a course LibGuide originally created by Kira Dietz.
Although Special Collections and University Archives is not a museum and we don't generally collect art, we do have more than 350 paintings, drawings, framed photographs, and other items related to our collecting areas or to existing manuscript collections. Most of our art works related to the American Civil War, women in architecture and design, and local history. In addition, some are connected to university history through provenance or artist. We are working on descriptive records for items in our art collection which you can browse on ArchivesSpace.
Although Special Collections and University Archives does not generally collect 3D objects and artifacts, we do have a variety of items related to university history that were donated along with manuscript collections. These artifacts are noted in the finding aids for those collections.
The largest collection of artifacts we have is the Virginia Tech April 16, 2007 Archives of the University Libraries (Ms2008-020) which includes over 350 textiles, artworks, handcrafted items, or other memorabilia items sent to the university following the mass shooting that took place on campus.
