What's New with the Virtual Vietnam Archive

Version 4.0 of the Virtual Vietnam Archive represents a complete redesign of the site. This redesign was based on user feedback received over the first two years of the Virtual Archive, as well as new technology available from our database software provider, Cuadra Associates.

The following is a list of new and changed features of the Virtual Vietnam Archive, followed by a version history list. As we add new features to the Virtual Archive, we will update this section to inform our users of the changes.

News and Notices

• 10/23/2013 - Launched Redesign of VNCA Website and the Virtual Vietnam Archive (v5.0). See below for changes.
• 3/29/2012 - Advanced Search Page: Added option to exclude Full Text from searches.
• 10/28/2011 - Addition of new Search Suggestions Thesaurus and prevention of being able to display search results when hits are greater than 1000 on Advanced Search Page.
• 12/07/2009 - Redesign of look of Virtual Vietnam Archive and Vietnam Center and Archive website. Share/Bookmark option added to individual records.
• 9/17/2008 - Some changes to the look of the Browse Search Results pages, and addition of new "Record Linking" tab, providing URLs for individual records, also known as permalinks.
• 6/11/2008 - RSS feed of new additions added
• 4/26/2008 - Simple / Quick Search page added (see below for more information). Title search field returned to Advanced Search Page. Simple search also added to results pages.
• 6/1/2007 - Redesigned website released. Some search options removed from Virtual Archive search page. New Browse the Collections and Browse the Interviews pages added.
• 3/27/2007 - A second server system has been added to the Virtual Archive, allowing the elimination of most Virtual Archive down-time.
• 10/19/2006 - The Texas Tech University campus experienced a network power outage at approximately 10:40 PM (-6:00 GMT) on October 18th, 2006. Service was restored to the Vietnam Project website and the Virtual Vietnam Archive at 10:00 am on October 19th.
• 6/21/2006 - The Vietnam Archive experienced a major power outage at approximately 2:45 (-06:00 GMT) on June 21st, 2006, lasting until 8:00pm. Website and Virtual Vietnam Archive were restored by 8:30 the next morning.

(Tom Ball Collection [VA027706])
• 1/20/2006 - New features added to the Virtual Vietnam Archive pages. See Version History below for more information.
• 11/7/2005 - "Double Quote" searches now available. See below for more information.
• 2/24/2005 - New search page for 1:50000 and 1:250000 map collection.
• 5/21/2004 - 1:50000 maps now available online. See below for more information.
• 3/5/2004 - Virtual Vietnam Archive Access Problems

New Additions RSS Feed

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/VirtualArchiveNewAdditions

A RSS Feed of records added to or updated in the Virtual Vietnam Archive has been created. This feed is updated Tuesday-Saturday at 5:00am (-0600 GMT) with the previous day's records. Use the links above for more information.

(More Information About RSS)

Quick Search Page

In an effort to make searches easier for new users, the Simple Search Page has been added. The simple search will conduct a keyword search of the full document using the terms entered by the user. Users will be taken to this search page immediately upon entering the site. To reduce the burden on our system resources, searches conducted with this Simple Search will produce no more than 500 results. There are links on the Simple Search Page to take users to the Advanced Search Page.

Changes

Some media types have been combined in the Media Format field. For example, Images now searches all photographs, negatives, and slides.

The first results page lists items in order of relevance to your search query.

The More Information page includes more information about each item, based on media type. Also included in some records are see also link.

The More Information page also includes an option to see the full text that is included in our document records. Please note that this full text is not edited and in some cases may be filled with gibberish.

Some browsers, particularly older versions, may not be able to use the redesigned Virtual Vietnam Archive and certain other pages. Unfortunately, support for these browsers has been discontinued. To use The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive websites to their full extent, please upgrade your browser to a newer version. (more information)

Version History

• v1.0 - September 2001 - October 2001: Preliminary beta version, not available to the public
• v2.0-2.3 - October 2001 - December 2003: The first publicly available version of the Virtual Archive, this version featured full text keyword searching, a collection index, and over 150,000 items consisting of over 1.5 million pages of material, including documents, images and streaming audio and moving images. This version is no longer available.
• v3.1 - Complete redesign of the look and features of the Virtual Archive. New features include streamlined search capabilities, more record level information customized for material type, and unedited full text, when available.
• v3.2 - Two new search fields added to search page - box and folder. This allows for searching within a particular box and/or folder of a collection for items that may have been found on a finding aid, or through some other source of information.
• v3.3 - All of the Vietnam Archive's 1:50000 and 1:250000 AMS maps are now available for limited searching. Maps can be searched by sheet number, collection, and map title. A dedicated search page is currently under development that will allow more in-depth searches of maps, including by latitude and longitude, as well as by grid zone. The 1:50000 maps now available online represent a nearly complete coverage of Vietnam, as well as maps of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Malaysia, and China. All non-copyrighted maps are available for download in a variety of formats and sizes, including full-sized PDF, 8x11 PDF, and JPG images.

(William Bruce Bartow Collection [VA057275])
• v3.4 - Checkbox added allowing users to limit their searches to only items added within the past 30 days.
• v3.5 - Changes to the Browse Results page: 1) Descriptions/Captions now appear when available for photographs and slides; 2) Links to other items in a particular item's folder and box are now available, allowing for browsing through a collection as a user would with the physical materials.
• v3.6 - Limiting Searches checkbox replaced with a drop down menu allowing users to limit searches to items added in the past day, past 3 days, past 5 days, past 1 week, etc...
• v3.7 - "Double Quote" searching now available. In the past, when users entered words or phrases into a Virtual Vietnam Archive search box, the search engine would find records that had all of those words, but not necessarily together. Now, users can place quotes around phrases to search for that exact phrase.
• v3.8 - New Features Added:
  • - Browse Results Pages reformatted for better information display
  • - Default number of results to be displayed on a Browse Results page increased to 50
  • - Option to change number of results to display per page added, allowing display of 25, 50, 75, or 100 records
  
  (Ron Leonard Collection [VAS040382])
  • - Navigation Links added within Finding Aids
  • - A new Browse Results page has been added - Image Browse. This page displays thumbnails of Photographs, Slides, Negatives, and Museum Objects without other information, allowing for quicker browsing through large numbers of images
  • - On More Information pages, Next Record and Previous Record links have been added, allowing navigation between records without having to return to the Browse Results page
• v4.0 - New design for Virtual Vietnam Archive. Some rarely used search options removed
• v4.1 - Simple Search Page added.
• v4.2 - Changes to the Browse Search Results pages, mostly cosmetic. More Information link for each record moved from right side of record to a new "tab" above the record. Additionally, a new "tab" titled Record Linking has been added. This tab provides a URL for each individual record that can be used for linking on other websites, emailing records to people, or bookmarking.

(Keith M. Holmes Collection [VAN001847])
• v4.3 - Changes to look of the site. Addition of Share/Bookmark feature, which allows for bookmarking of individual records, emailing records, or sharing on a variety of sites like Facebook. Selections checkboxes removed from Browse Results.
• v4.4 - Integration of Search Suggestions Thesaurus feature into searches, displayed on the Browse Results page. Additionally, on Advanced Search Page, users are prevented from displaying results when initial search results are greater than 1000 hits.
• v4.5 - Exclusion of Full Text from searches added
• v5.0 - Virtual Archive redesigned:
  • New look
  • Now optimized for mobile use
  • Options to limit by media type on the simple search page
  • Browse the collections option added
  • Ability to exclude Special Projects from search results on the Advanced Search page
  • On search results, option to filter results by media type or if the item is available online or not
  • Ability to sort results by the date the item was created or by the date the item was added to the Virtual Archive on the search results page
  • Larger preview images for photographs, slides, and museum objects
  • Moving Images and some audio now do not require external software to play. Number of icons reduced to make these media types less confusing
  • Learn more about the creator of the item from the results page by clicking the "About" link"
  • Improvements to navigation

For questions concerning the Virtual Vietnam Archive, contact us at 806-742-9010 or vnca@ttu.edu. For technical questions, first try the help pages included in the Virtual Archive, or contact vnca@ttu.edu.