[ Music ] ^M00:00:08 >> The Veterans History Project, also known as VHP, collects original materials from United States military veterans who served from World War I to more recent conflicts. These materials are diverse in format. They include oral history interviews, original photographs, memoirs, diaries, two-dimensional artwork, letters, and more. VHP organizes these original materials into collections, named after the veteran whose experiences they reflect. These unique collections are contributed by volunteers and veterans across the nation. This video will explain how to research the collections that are part of the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress. The best way to begin your research is by searching the VHP database. To get there, begin on the Veterans History Project homepage at LOC.GOV/VETS. Then click on search the veterans' collections. Many people search the database to find information about a specific person, often a relative. To find an individual veteran in our collections, you can search by the veteran's name or initials. For very common first names, you may need to try several combinations. For example, when you search Vince Patton, you don't get any results. However, when you search for Vincent Patton, using the full name instead of a nickname, the database pulls up the exact record that you are looking for. If there is a match in VHP's collections, your search will generate a list of collection records in alphabetical order. In this case, there is only one record for Vincent Patton. So you would click on his name to continue to his collection record. Each collection record page in the VHP database provides biographical information about the veteran as well as information about the material in their collection. Let's take a look at the collection record for Bobbie Sue Grape to learn more. On the left-hand side, you'll find information about Grape's service in the Women's Army Corps. On the right-hand side, under collection information, you will see a list of all of the types of material in Grape's collection. In this case, manuscript materials as well as video recorded oral history interview. If the collection has materials available online, there will be a box entitled view digitized collection. Selecting this box will link you to the digitized content. If you are not looking for the record of a specific veteran, there are a number of ways you can search more broadly. On the VHP database homepage, use the advanced search options to fine-tune your search results. ^M00:02:38 One of the quickest ways to narrow your results is to use the check boxes on the right-hand side of the search menu, which let you limit your results by conflict or era, branch of service, gender, and prisoner of war status. You can also use check boxes to select what kind of material you are interested in viewing, like audio or video recorded oral history interviews, manuscript material, and photographs. Let's say you are looking for original photographs of women veterans from World War II. To get the most relevant results, you will limit your search by checking the boxes next to World War II and female. You can also select particular formats which interest you. So in this case, you will check the photo box under type of material and check the box for original under type of photograph. Finally, you will select go to continue. Using these advanced search options will limit your results to only those collections from women who served during World War II which contain original photographic materials. ^M00:03:35 You can also search within specific fields in the database for more precise results. For example, many people are interested in finding veterans who served in a particular service unit. As you can see in this list on the left, service unit is one of the searchable fields in the VHP database. Let's say you want to find veterans who served in the First Marine Division, in the left-hand menu, you would select service unit/ship and then enter First Marine Division into the search box. Then select go. For additional search options, select the browse tab located just above the search box on the VHP database homepage. Selecting the browse tab allows you to browse through collections alphabetically by last name, by war, and military branch, and by state of residence. You can also browse veteran collections by race or ethnicity. However, please note that many veterans choose not to report their race or ethnicity when they donate their materials to VHP. Please keep in mind not all of our original collection materials are available online. Most researchers find that they need to speak with VHP reference staff in order to comprehensively search our collections. If you are not finding material that fits your research question, VHP reference staff are ready and waiting to assist you. From the Veterans History Project homepage, LOC.GOV/VETS, select contact us to connect with VHP reference staff. You can contact the Veterans History Project by email, by phone, or by using our ask a librarian online service.