World libraries: Veterans History Project marks milestone: digitizes 10,000 collections of first-person remembrances of U.S. war veterans

The Veterans History Project (VHP) of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress reached a major milestone as it begins its second decade of collecting, preserving and sharing the first-person recollections of U.S. war veterans. Now, 10,000 of its more than 75,000 collections are digitized at www.loc.gov/vets/, making these recorded interviews, photographs, letters and other historical documents fully accessible to anyone with Internet access. Its 10,000th digitized collection is of World War II Coast Guard veteran George A. Travers, who recounts his remarkable D-Day experience at Iwo Jima. Travers’ digitized collection can be found at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.37943/ which contains an interview with the veteran, its transcript and 9 photos. 

Through a vast network of volunteers, both individuals and organizations, VHP receives an average of 100 to 200 new collections each week. After about a six-month processing period, every veteran receives his or her own web page on the VHP site, which provides users with basic information summarizing the veteran’s military service. Alongside all the collections of the Library of Congress, some VHP collections are selected for digitization according to Library standards and criteria. Veterans whose collections have been digitized are identified by a "view digital collection" button. From there, users may watch or listen to recorded interviews, view photographs, read letters, diaries or journal entries, and browse two-dimensional art.

Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000 as a national documentation program of the American Folklife Center to collect, preserve and make accessible the first-hand remembrances of American wartime veterans, so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.