To Be of Use: Re-examining Army Corps of Engineer's Collections

The Veterans Curation Program has been rehabilitating U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) collections for long-term preservation since 2009. With the dual goal of training and assisting veterans with their professional goals while also archiving and curating USACE collections, this program ultimately produces high quality digital records and photographs of cultural materials from across the U.S. This paper delves into the value of USACE’s digital collections for continued research, education, and public engagement. These digital records, once finalized, are uploaded to the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) and provide greater access of the archaeological and archival collections for researchers, teachers, and other stake holders. This paper features finalized collections that were processed at each of the three VCP labs in Alexandria, VA, Augusta, GA, and St. Louis, MO. The materials span a range of cultural materials from the Mid-Atlantic, Mid-west, and Southeastern U.S., and embrace the direction in the field toward digital preservation of material culture.