Virginia Tech made available about 7,600 documents related to the April 16, 2007, shootings to families of 57 victims Wednesday, as part of an $11 million wrongful death settlement the state reached in June.

The documents total about 13,700 pages of information in an electronic archive that will be made available to the public in February, a news release from the university said Wednesday.

The archive contains scanned documents and e-mail correspondence related to the shootings and shooter Seung-Hui Cho "and his Virginia Tech academic career, records and e-mail correspondence from university policy group on April 16-17 and the university's recovery efforts in days immediately following the shootings," the release said.

The university attributed the delay in releasing the archive to the public -- which is primarily made up of public information, such as e-mails from university officials -- to the specialized software being used to give the families and wounded victims access to the information.

The release also explained that the delay will allow families "time to use and inspect the materials and to ensure that they are satisfied that no otherwise protected information [unique to them or their loved one] is exposed." All records related to Cho, except medical records, will be public.

Families have been given unique passwords to allow them to access the archive and private information specific to their relative, Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said. He described the archive as working like a searchable database.

"It's kind of like a Google search," he said. "You go in and punch in 'Hincker,' and it's going to go in and get everything by me, about me or written to me."

Once it is determined that the software can handle a larger audience and families have made sure unique information about their family members that is not public is excluded, the archive will be made available to the public.

Families can access the archive through any Web-accessible computer. Tech will first make the archive available to the public through computers in its Newman Library on campus as well as the Library of Virginia in Richmond before making it available to anyone with access to the Internet.

"The ultimate goal is that this thing would be publicly accessible to anyone, anywhere," Hincker said.