Research Guides: Virginia Tech History Resources: Home

About the Virginia Tech History Resource Guide and University History

Welcome to the Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) guide to Virginia Tech History Resources! This guide features tools and information to help you locate unpublished and published resources about the university from its founding in 1872 thru today. Materials in SCUA include the following:

University Archives, comprising the official records created by administrators, offices, and student groups at the university;
publications and printed material, such as books, journals, newsletters, pamphlets, and posters;
audiovisual items like oral histories, campus maps, architectural drawings, and historic photographs of the campus, employees, and students; and
papers of alumni, staff, and faculty about their experiences and research.

This guide will also highlight related resources located in SCUA, Newman Library, and other places.

We'll be adding to this guide as new resources arrive, but we also encourage you to contact us with questions as your research or interests develop.

Related Research Guides

Special Collections and University Archives: A Basic Introduction
If you're new to primary sources, archives, and special collections, or Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives specifically, this guide includes a basic introduction to the materials we house, our mission, and our services. This guide will tell you about the different types of materials we collect as well as more in depth information on how to search/use different resources.
Historically Marginalized Communities Resources
This guide includes resources for historically marginalized and underrepresented communities, such as Appalachian, LGBTQ+, Black/African American, and Asian and Asian American communities. Many resources relate to Virginia Tech history.
Oral History @ VT: Oral History Collections
The Oral History Collections page on the Oral History @ VT research guide contains information about collections held by Special Collections and University Archives. Many of these collections relate to the history of Virginia Tech and individuals associated with the university and New River Valley.

Major Resource Search Locations

Below are the main places to look for materials held by SCUA. The items on other pages are primarily pulled from these databases, which you can search on your own by keyword for departments, individuals, and subjects for more.

Record Groups in the University Archives
This list includes the major overview of the University Archives' Record Groups. Record Groups are the official records of the university held by Special Collections and University Archives. This includes official records, newspaper clippings, and printed material.

The records are divided into assigned Record Groups designated by the prefix, RG. For example, materials relating to the Board of Visitors are identified as RG 1/x, whereas the papers of the various presidents of the university are designated RG 2/x.

There are two versions, a spreadsheet for sorting and filtering and a document that includes a page per RG number.
Virginia Heritage
Virginia Heritage is a database of more than 12,000 finding aids which provide information about the vast array of manuscripts and archival collections housed in historical societies, libraries, museums, colleges, and universities across the Commonwealth, including Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives. The continuous addition of new and updated finding aids makes this a great tool for discovering primary source materials documenting the history, culture, and people of Virginia.
Library catalog
This is the Virginia Tech University Libraries' online catalog for publications and other material held by the University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives material, including books, pamphlets, audiovisual media, and some manuscript collections and archival records.

HathiTrust
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The HathiTrust Digital Library contains over seven million volumes and over one billion pages of scanned books and other materials. About 20 percent of all content is in the public domain (and accessible to you). You can also browse several public collections. Content is available in several image formats, text, and PDF. 1200s-present.

Virginia Tech Web Archive on Archive-It.org
The Virginia Tech official web presence plus selected project web sites created and administered by Virginia Tech faculty, students, and staff. Includes archived versions of the university website from 2015-present, with different subdomains of vt.edu organized and identified for viewing.
VT.edu Website Archive on the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive
This includes archived versions of the university website from 1997-present. It is not as organized as the archived website on Archive-It.org. However, you can also search for specific vt.edu web addresses in the toolbar at the top of the page.

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Land & Labor Acknowledgement

We thank the American Indian & Indigenous Community Center for providing this statement:

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 legislation and practices like the Morrill Act (1862) enabled the commonwealth of Virginia to finance and found Virginia Tech through the forced removal of Native Nations from their lands, both locally and 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.

We must also recognize that enslaved Black people generated revenue and resources used to establish Virginia Tech and were prohibited from attending until 1953. 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.