At the National Archives and Records Administration, we care for our nation's most beloved documents. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights are our most well known national treasures, but in the stacks there are many others, some of them not yet discovered. At a researcher meeting … Continue reading Citizen Archivist Discovers National Treasure in the Stacks
If you're reading this, the following statistic from a recent Pew Internet report applies to you: Fully 82% of internet users (representing 61% of all American adults) looked for information or completed a transaction on a government website in the previous twelve months. It probably doesn't surprise you that increasingly Americans are relying on the … Continue reading Redefining Transparency in a Digital Age
At the National Archives and Records Administration, our unique role as the nation's records keeper is critical to the success of the President's open government initiative. Our work serves American democracy by safeguarding and preserving the records of our Government, ensuring that the people can discover, use, and learn from this documentary heritage. I think … Continue reading Pork and Fort Sumter: New Ways of Relating to our Documents
I have said it before in a number of venues and I will say it again here, records management is the backbone of Open Government. Without effective records management by all Federal agencies, the long-term success of the Open Government Initiative, not to mention the preservation and access of the permanently valuable records of the … Continue reading The Importance of Being Earnest (About Records Management)
Recently, NASA launched an online project called "Be A Martian." At first glance, this website is a highly sophisticated public education tool that creates an online experience to connect the public with NASA's mission. On closer inspection, this is also an important crowdsourcing project. The public is invited to participate as "citizen scientists" by aligning Mars … Continue reading Cultivating Citizen Archivists
The Pew Research Center recently published a report, “The Impact of the Internet on Institutions in the Future,” in which it found that 72 percent of experts agreed with the statement: By 2020, innovative forms of online cooperation will result in significantly more efficient and responsive governments, business, non-profits, and other mainstream institutions. That optimism … Continue reading No Small Change
