On Saturday, August 6, more than a dozen Wikipedians attended the backstage pass tour and scanathon at the United States National Archives in College Park, Maryland. The day began at around 11 a.m., as attendees mingled casually among snacks and swag in a lecture room while others passed through security and registered for visitors [...]

Maybe it was Memphis (with apologies to Pam Tillis) Recently in Nashville, Tennessee, the Council of State Archivists and the National Association of Government Records Administrators and Archives came together to share new ideas and renew old acquaintances.  About 175 archivists and records administrators were in attendance.  That’s down from last year both because of [...]

We’re just over halfway through this summer’s “I Found it in the National Archives” contest and have enjoyed reading the stories that have come in so far! From Rebecca Lawrence-Weden’s tale of a lighthouse, a walnut and the Great War to Wendy Griswold’s experience shedding some light on a 106-year-old family tragedy, the determination and [...]

When you signed up as a researcher at the National Archives, what did our staff pull out of the stacks for you? Was it a photo of your great-grandfather with the Secretary of War as he received a commendation? Or did you find a telegraph your favorite president sent at the height of his career? [...]

We asked our new Wikipedian in Residence, Dominic McDevitt-Parks, to tell us a little bit about himself and his passion for Wikipedia.  Welcome to the National Archives, Dominic! Tell us a little about yourself.  Where are you from?  What do you study in school? I am a history buff, a word nerd, a news junkie, [...]

The National Archives will be here to answer all your archival questions on June 9th!  Known as Ask Archivists Day, this worldwide event on Twitter will bring together the people who collect, care for, and research archival records in one space where questions from general research practices to whether a repository has your ancestor’s information [...]

If you are anything like me, you would love to volunteer more, but you don’t feel you have enough time to make a commitment. Luckily, these days, anyone with a computer and internet access can easily participate in online volunteer projects. An upcoming public program at the National Archives will look at three projects where [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]