Preservation archive
	The CI Archive is a collection of photographs, documents, publications, artifacts and oral histories portraying the history of the school and its physical, social, political, and economic context. The archive will serve as a repository for collections relevant to the history of African American secondary and elementary education after 1865. The archive had its beginnings with the founding of the CIAA in 1976. At left: The school library was initially housed in Baily Morris Hall, a four-story, multi-use building completed in 1912. Christiansburg Institute students were expected to adhere to strict codes of conduct; note that girls and boys and girls studied at separate tables, Christiansburg Institute Collection.
Today, a systematic building program is aimed at developing a substantial and focused collection. In 1997 the microfilmed minutes of the Friends' Freedman's Association Executive Board, which governed the Institute from 1869-1934, were added to the collection. In 2000 the Christiansburg Institute, Inc. (CII) entered into an agreement with the Virginia Tech Libraries Special Collections. Through this partnership the CII collection will be preserved, stored, digitized, identified, and made accessible via an on-line digital library index. Collaboration with Radford and Virginia Tech universities and the Montgomery County School System engages students and faculty in ongoing oral and material history collection. In 2001 CII received a grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities to produce a booklet of edited writings selected from the papers of Edgar A. Long, principal for 18 years (until his death in 1924) of Christiansburg Institute. Selected passages from Long's unpublished reports and personal writings will provide a descriptive history of the school through the words of its most respected principal and illuminate Long's personal identity as an African American educator under a state-sanctioned policy of segregation. The CII collection, will be transferred to the Edgar A. Long building upon the establishment of its archive facility.

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