Texas Tech University Digitizing Massive Vietnam Archive.

The article looks at the development of The Vietnam Project, which provides digital information resources. Texas Tech University (TTU), Lubbock, is ramping up The Vietnam Project (www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter) with several massive digitization initiatives that will make major resources far more accessible. Launched in 1989, the project consists of two units, The Vietnam Center and The Virtual Vietnam Archive, along with smaller subdivisions: The Oral History Project, The Vietnam Archive, and The Teachers' Resource Web. The project was the brainchild of TTU history professor and navy veteran Jim Reckner, now its director, and a group of local Vietnam veterans, who approached the Board of Regents, which embraced the project. After existing on paper for more than a decade, the project began incorporating a virtual archive in 2001 using a collection management system called STAR/ Museums from Cuadra Associates (www.cuadra.com). The project continually receives materials from veterans -- roughly 1500 total, including 465 in the last year alone.