The following is a guest post from Jane Long, Preservation Officer at the National Archives: Emergencies can happen anytime, but a little preparedness goes a long way to diminish their effects. Every year, NARA participates in MayDay, a national event to raise awareness of the importance of taking simple steps to protect people and records. [...]

The following is a guest post from Aimee Primeaux, Preservation Program Officer at the National Archives: Preservation is at the heart of what we do here at NARA: Preservation Programs has joined forces with SAA’s Preservation Section to create an e-poster in recognition of Preservation Week. This poster outlines basic strategies to preserve your collections, [...]

Have you ever landed on a Wikipedia page containing just the beginnings of an article, waiting to be filled in with valuable content? In Wikipedia parlance, these are stubs; skeleton pages set up with the basic outline of a topic which subject matter experts can work together to build into full encyclopedia articles. We see [...]

On April 13-14, Fynnette Eaton (NHA) and Kevin Devorsey (NWM) participated in a stakeholders meeting of the Unified Digital Format Registry (UDFR), held at the Library of Congress, along with 22 cultural memory institutions concerned with digital preservation. UDFR aims to pool the expertise of these archival communities to document characteristics that can be used to identify file formats, and then to document the information in an authoritative knowledge base.

In the spirit of Earth Day throughout the coming year, the National Archives is collaborating with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on a new photography project. We are inviting you to submit your best photos of the environment you experience in your hometown or your travels. The Earth Day State of the Environment photo project [...]

Documerica was a photo project commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency in the 1970s to document life, people, and the environment across the United States.  These photos are a slice of life from New Ulm, Minnesota to South Beach, Florida and everywhere in between. In honor of Environmental Awareness month and Earth Day on April [...]

Since joining the Flickr Commons, several users have wowed us with their insightful comments and tags on our photos.  After highlighting the work of TVL1970 a few months ago, we’ve interviewed another avid Flickr contributor.  Penny Richards of Redondo Beach, CA, better known to Flickr users as Pennylrichardsca, has contributed tags, comments, and even shared [...]

The National Archives’ photostream on Flickr has been a popular place for our users to view, comment, and discuss photos in our collection since June 2009.  We recently hit 2 million views on our photos on Flickr.  As we’ve seen the activity on our photostream grow (especially after joining the Flickr Commons in February 2010), [...]

Ever been to a birthday party for an encyclopedia? No? Well, here’s your chance. Wikipedia turns 10 tomorrow, and there will be celebrations worldwide over the next two weeks. On Saturday, January 22nd, 2011, it’s our turn to get in on the fun. The National Archives will be hosting a 10th anniversary meetup for friends [...]

Have you ever looked at a pension index, only to be confused because it didn’t make sense? Or frustrated because you couldn’t read the numbers? It’s probably happened to most of us, at one time or another. Researchers normally start with T288, General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934, or T289, Organization Index to Pension Files [...]