PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT


PREVIEW OF CIVIL WAR ELECTRONIC-HISTORY PROJECT ABOUT AUGUSTA COUNTY
TO BE PRESENTED OCT. 24 IN STAUNTON

	The public is invited to a special Shenandoah Valley preview
of a unique electronic history project about Augusta County in the
Civil War era on Thursday, Oct. 24.  The demonstration of the
award-winning "Valley of the Shadow" hypermedia archive will be
presented by University of Virginia historian Edward Ayers from
5-6:30 p.m. at the Museum of Frontier Culture in Staunton.

	"The Valley of the Shadow Project: A Digital Archive of
Northern and Southern Community Life in the Era of the Civil War,"
directed by Ayers, has received a major National Endowment for the
Humanities award to support completion of CD-ROM and Internet
versions of the interactive program for teaching about the Civil
War. The widely praised Project is an electronic archive of diaries,
newspapers, military records, tax lists, church records and other
sources that document life in two communities divided by a few
hundred miles and the Mason Dixon line -- Franklin County, Pa., and
Augusta County, Va. -- before, during and after the Civil War. 
By connecting users to a vast array of materials from the past, the
project allows you to explore every dimension of the war and to
reconstruct the life stories of soldiers, enslaved and free blacks,
families, women, politicians, farmers, merchants and others.

	"The Valley of the Shadow" has been widely recognized as a
promising new way to explore and learn about history.

	For more information, contact Gail Hoerr at (804) 979-9606. 

###

October 18, 1996

START DATE:  Immediate
KILL DATE:     Oct. 25, 1996