RICHMOND—Through a partnership with the Library of Virginia, Virginia Farm Bureau Federation has been able to make back issues of its producer member publication, Virginia Farm Bureau News, available online as part of the Virginia Newspaper Project.

Issues of Farm Bureau News from February 1941 through January 2000 are available at no cost with all images and search capability at digitalvirginianewspapers.com and a link on the front of the VFBF website at VaFarmBureau.org.

“We had nearly every issue saved at our home office in Goochland County,” said Greg Hicks, VFBF vice president of communications. “We were proud of that, but it just wasn’t the best solution for preserving or sharing Virginia’s farm news publication of record.

“When we approached the Library of Virginia’s staff to see what other options we might have, we found that they too possessed nearly all of the issues. But nowhere in the state was there one complete set.”

The two institutions compared inventories to fill in the gaps, and the library staff began the process of microfilming each one.

Errol S. Somay, director of the Virginia Newspaper Project, explained that, while microfilming might seem like “the cutting edge of yesterday’s technology,” preservation microfilming offers two important and desirable advantages. “It provides a stable preservation medium that can be archived for hundreds of years,” Somay said, “and it serves as the perfect cost-effective foundation for digital transfer.”

Hicks said a plan will be made to preserve and share issues of Farm Bureau News published after February 2000, when the publication was upgraded from newspaper to magazine format.

“That’s next, but at the moment we are extremely pleased to be able to share the majority of the Farm Bureau News issues with our members and the interested public. It’s been in Virginia farm homes for generations, and I’m sure we have members who will be interested in looking up articles and events of historical significance to their families and their farms.”

Contact Hicks at 804-290-1139 or Pam Wiley, VFBF communications, at 804-290-1128.