Collections : [West Virginia and Regional History Center]

Papers of novelist and poet Valerie Nieman, a graduate of West Virginia University's journalism department. She has written books and poetry, mostly on Appalachia and themes set around Appalachian life, including To the Bones and In the Lonely Backwater. Nieman has won several awards, fellowships, and grants, including being a 2013-2014 North Carolina Arts Council poetry fellow, as well as earning a West Virginia Commission on the Arts creative writing grant.

Includes oral history recordings, transcripts, and a list of guiding questions for the interviews. These oral histories were conducted as part of a commemorative project for the 25th anniversary of the West Virginia Botanic Garden (WVBG) in Morgantown, WV and as a project for a WVU graduate-level history course. The interviewees discuss the founding of the garden, their role in its operations, notable events in WVBG history, and their hopes for the garden's future. Interviewees include Philip Smith, Executive Director of the WVBG, and Linda Bagby, longtime WVBG board member and former president of the board. Interviewers include Ashley Sellars and Sidney Stewart, two WVU Public History M.A. students.

This collection contains administrative records of the West Virginia and Regional History Center. The material includes correspondence, monthly and annual reports, visitor and acquisition statistics, Center policies and procedures, and records of preservation activities. There are also records regarding renovations and additions to WVU Libraries, and other general library documentation.