Brief thoughts about archivists and the White House

The National Archivist keeps the Nation’s Heritage

There’s an article in today’s New York Times about David Ferriero,the archivist of the US. While the subtitle (“Collector in Chief Hoards Nation’s Irreplaceable Stuff”) betrays stereotypes about the ways that the work of archivists and the contents of archives are viewed,the article has some interesting tidbits for us to examine.

Several that jumped out at me:

• Digital record keeping has created new challenges:each agency has its own standards;since it consumes less space,the temptation is to avoid discretionary decisions and save more than is needed;electronic records are more subject to tampering;and emerging technology requires curatorial nimbleness. (The White House is hiring a social media archivist.)

The first part is something that has been discussed ad infinitum by NARA and others. Born-digital records come with built-in problems when we consider them using appraisal practices that are suited for a paper-based practice. That part isn’t news,and neither is the discussion of authenticity and migration,but I’m glad to see that it made the paper,anyway. The part that I found to be very interesting:the White House is hiring a social media archivist? I’m really curious to hear more about that.

• How many digitized records should be available online? “If I had my way,” he replied,“everything.”

OK,I like the idea of every digitized record being available online,in theory. What is the reality? In practice,NARA’s website (websites,if you include the presidential libraries,which also use the creaky ARC database) is woefully difficult to navigate,and even if much more content were made available,the infrastructure needs a significant boost. NARA holds some rich and magnificent resources,and like every repository out there,time,money,and backlog will always be issues. Ferreiro sidesteps the issue here (and for a general audience,perhaps he made the right choice),but I’d like to hear about the appraisal process for digitization at NARA and what the benchmarks and goals look like for improved research access to collection materials.

• The Obama administration has also given the National Archives responsibility for reviewing the declassification of 400 million pages of secret documents by the end of 2013. Mr. Ferriero’s goal,he said,is “to ensure that we have the user at the center of our thinking — historians,genealogists,open government folks. What can we do to make their lives easier?”

Obviously the newly established NARA declass center (NDC) will have something to do with this,but the last part of the paragraph was interesting to me. What is NARA doing to make research easier for users? I’m really looking forward to hearing more about this.

Full article here:The National Archivist keeps the Nation’s Heritage