Are you planning to attend the National Archives’ 6th annual Genealogy Fair? If so, we hope you’ll come visit us at our exhibit tables. NARA’s new Open Government Plan (PDF) highlights how crucial social media is to opening up the Archives and establishes the redesign of Archives.gov as NARA’s “flagship initiative.” Stop by, bring us [...]

We wanted to share a few pictures from a recent awards ceremony in Congress, where Chairman Clay was presented with a Duke Ellington Public Domain Merit Badge today by Public Resource.org for grassroots efforts on making NARA’s resources available to everyone. Take a look, and if you have your own suggestions for how we can [...]

The National Records Management Program’s RACO blog, which paved the way for all other National Archives social media projects back in the spring of 2009 has been reborn as Records Express, the official blog of the National Records Management Program (NRMP) at the National Archives! The new blog will be a forum for all things [...]

Our researchers in Archives I asked for a way that we could continue the discussions begun at our recent researcher meeting at Archives I in Washington, DC. Special media researchers have also encouraged us to make communications easier with staff and managers. In response, we’re introducing a specialized series here on NARAtions. This new set [...]

Cultural organizations sometimes get a bad rap for adopting “technology for technology’s sake.” This tends to happen when observers feel that the excitement and widespread appeal of a new product has eclipsed its actual usefulness within the scope of the organization’s existing mission and strategic plan. On the other hand, with the proper research, planning [...]

We’ve loved reading your suggestions and comments about sharing NARA’s holdings on Flickr, and it’s been interesting to see which images people are marking as favorites. All of this got us wondering about which records NARA insiders are particularly fond of, so we asked a few of our experienced colleagues for their picks. This week’s [...]

We’ve loved reading your suggestions and comments about sharing NARA’s holdings on Flickr, and it’s been interesting to see which images people are marking as favorites. All of this got us wondering about which records NARA insiders are particularly fond of, so we asked a few of our experienced colleagues for their picks. This week’s [...]

There’s no question- the National Archives holds a LOT of stuff. That breadth can be a challenge to explain to new researchers and casual website visitors, whose understanding of NARA collections may be as broad as “all the records made in the U.S.” or as dismissive as “boxes and boxes of boring government paperwork.” One [...]

This week’s highlighted question comes from Dan in NARA’s Motion Pictures (NWCS-M) department. The unit has been looking for some time at new models for delivery of NARA’s film, video and audio holdings as it struggles with keeping the aging analog reference collection alive and well. Given limited resources, the problem requires a multi-faceted solution, [...]

We’ve loved reading your suggestions and comments about sharing NARA’s holdings on Flickr, and it’s been interesting to see which images people are marking as favorites. All of this got us wondering about which records NARA insiders are particularly fond of, so we asked a few of our experienced colleagues for their picks. This second [...]