For Immediate Release For additional information contact Reed Engle @ (540) 999-3495 PUBLIC READING ROOM OPENS JUNE 5 Shenandoah National Park, VA--Shenandoah National Park Superintendent Douglas K. Morris announced today that construction is nearing completion and the public reading room in the building that houses Park archives will open on June 5, 2001. According to Morris, "The completion of the reading room addition is a milestone in a six-year project to establish a professional museum management program at Shenandoah National Park." Prior to 1994 Park archival records and museum objects were housed in over seven different locations with no environmental controls or security. None of the collections were cataloged. Since 1995 the Park, using funds made available through the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program and special funding provided by the National Park Service's Museum Program Office, has spent over $500,000 to construct a state-of-the-art curatorial storage facility and to process and catalog over 350,000 records and museum objects, approximately 70% of the Park's collection. The Park has also obtained funding to hire a permanent archival staff: Harry Heiss, Archivist, and Alison Kelly, Archival Technician. The collections' primary focus is on the establishment and subsequent development of Shenandoah National Park. Its holdings include Park resource management records documenting the creation and development of the Park from 1931 to 1965 and duplicate copies of Commonwealth of Virginia land records relating to the survey, appraisal, and condemnation of privately owned property before establishment of the Park . The Park also has cataloged the personal papers of Ferdinand Zerkel and Darwin Lambert and various assembled collections specifically related to the Civilian Conservation Corps, Skyland Resort, and former President Herbert Hoover's Rapidan Camp (for many years referred to as Camp Hoover). The collections contain no known family or public records dating prior to 1924 with the exception of Skyland Resort materials. Genealogical records are only those incidentally documented by the Commonwealth of Virginia in the 1927 property appraisals and in a few cases by family letters to the Park dated after 1935 and included in Park resource management records. Within the next few weeks, copies of finding aids to cataloged Park archival collections will be available in local libraries. In order to continue making progress in cataloging the remaining collections, the reading room will be open to staff and the public by appointment only Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8:30 a.m - 12:00 noon and 1:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m. Walk-in requests will not be honored until the collections are fully cataloged. Appointments may be made after May 21, 2001, by telephone at (540) 999-3494, by FAX at (540) 999-3493 or by email at [email protected] Requests for information may continue to be made without a visit to the Park archives. Appointments and requests for information will be handled in the order in which they are received. * * * * * Prepared 5/14/01 Carol Laing [email protected] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChildrenoftheShenandoah