Planning a visit to the Library of Congress to review Veterans History Project collections?

Please make an appointment with us:

• By phone: (202)-707-4916
• By email: vohp@loc.gov
• Contact us a week in advance

Use our online database to explore the collections:

• Go to http://www.loc.gov/vets/ and select "Search the Veterans Database"
• Search or browse for names, as well as 7 additional categories
• Limit searches by war or branch of service
• View the contents of over 2,400 collections which have been digitized

After consulting with VHP staff, researchers may review groups of collections in the American Folklife Center Reading Room.

• Hours: 8:30 am - 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday (except federal holidays)
• Location: ground floor of the Jefferson Building, LJ G53
• You must obtain a Reader Registration card in room 140 of the Madison Building at the Library of Congress in order to use the reading room.
• For information about doing research at the Library of Congress, please visit the following: http://www.loc.gov/loc/visit/ and http://www.loc.gov/rr/main/inforeas/register.html

Obtaining Copies of Collection Materials

The Library of Congress has established procedures for obtaining copies of all of its collection materials for a fee. Information about the request process and current associated fees is available online at http://www.loc.gov/folklife/recordering.html.

Please note that in order for the Veterans History Project to release the original recording for duplication, we must receive from the interviewee and interviewer written letters stating his/her permission for you to copy the recording. This protects the rights of the interviewee and the interviewer.

Photocopies of manuscript material and photographs can be made in the Reading Room for 20 cents each. The Library also has a Photoduplication Service if you are interested in high-quality photoduplication. Please note that the express, written permission of the interviewee and/or donor may be required for high-quality photoduplication and any subsequent publication or use of these materials.

Policy for Using Veterans History Project materials

As a publicly supported institution the Library generally does not own rights to material in its collections. Therefore, it does not charge permission fees for use of such material and cannot give or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute material in its collections.

When copyright interests do subsist in unpublished manuscripts, these interests are the property of the author or of the author's heirs or assigns. Copyright ownership does not necessarily accompany physical ownership of a manuscript. In fact, veterans participating in the Veterans History Project retained their copyright interests in the materials they submitted.

Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute (Title 17 of the U.S. Code), it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances. Thus, there are circumstances under the fair use doctrine where a quote or a sample may be used without permission. However, in cases of doubt, the Copyright Office recommends that permission be obtained. Please also see the Library's Legal Notices page at http://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html.

Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item from the Library's collections and for securing any necessary permissions rests with persons desiring to use the item. Accordingly, the Project recommends that users who conclude they cannot avail themselves of the fair use doctrine or other statutory exemption contact the veteran or civilian in question to obtain permission. Additionally, the Project recommends that any contact be in writing. For this reason, Project staff will only provide the street addresses for the veteran or civilian in question.

Privacy and publicity rights reflect separate and distinct interests from copyright interests. Users desiring to use material from this Project bear the responsibility of making individualized determinations whether privacy and publicity rights are implicated by the nature of the materials and how they may wish to use the materials.

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Citing VHP materials

Please use the following formats when citing Veterans History Project materials (substituting the appropriate name and collection ID number):

materials as a whole:

John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/xxxx), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

manuscript material:

John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/xxxx), Memoirs (MS02), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/xxxx), Transcript (MS04), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/xxxx), Correspondence (MS01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

recording:

John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/xxxx), Audio recording (SR01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/xxxx), Video recording (MV01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

photograph:

John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/xxxx), Photographs (PH01), photographer unknown, Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/xxxx), Photographs (PH03-PH14), Ralph Williams photographer, Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

computer file/material on disk:

John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/xxxx), Computer file (CF01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

artifact:

John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/xxxx), Artifact (AR01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.