On Monday, April 15, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum suffered a fire. It was quickly managed and extinguished by first responders from the Boston Fire Department and the Boston Police Department. My sincere thanks go to them for their extraordinary efforts. I am grateful that no one was injured. This fire occurred … Continue reading The Spirit of Boston
Veterans Day has special meaning for us at the National Archives where we hold the almost 112 million individual personnel files and medical records of the men and women who have served in the military. Housed in St. Louis, Missouri and Valmeyer, Illinois, more than 800 staff process, protect, and service those records to ensure … Continue reading We Salute You
I hope that you and your families are well and safe after Sandy’s visit to the Northeast. The National Archives buildings were largely spared, thanks to extensive preparation based on “lessons learned” from similar weather events. I am grateful to all of our staff and especially to our facilities and emergency staff for their ongoing … Continue reading Staying Ahead of Sandy
In his Memorandum on Managing Government Records, President Obama stated “…proper records management is the backbone of open Government.” The Memorandum began an executive branch wide effort to reform records management policies and practices and required each agency to: identify a senior official responsible for records provide plans for improving or maintaining its records management … Continue reading Records Management with a Backbone
Last Saturday I spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of Wikimedians at the Wikimania 2012 Conference here in Washington. Over 1400 people from 87 countries came together to talk, hack, and share their expertise and experiences at the week-long event. I was glad to share in their joie de vivre and to talk about our common … Continue reading Wikimania 2012
On his first day on the job President Barack Obama told his Senior Staff, “Our commitment to openness means more than simply informing the American people about how decisions are made. It means recognizing that Government does not have all the answers, and that public officials need to draw on what citizens know. And that’s … Continue reading Solving the Problems of Our Time
This week we had an agency wide Public Employee Service Recognition webinar. Staff gathered virtually across the country to celebrate their fellow employees, especially those who have provided 35, 40, and 45+ years of Federal Service. I am very proud of the dedicated folks I work with and although it wasn’t as good as being … Continue reading Thanks
Until fairly recently, social media has been seen as experimental and outside the realm of the essential work of our agency. Today that is simply no longer the case. Smart use of social media is now mission-critical to our agency. As the agency charged with advising Federal Agencies and the White House on the records … Continue reading Join the Chorus
On April 1, 1940 over 120,000 census takers fanned out across the United States to begin conducting the 1940 census. Over the next several weeks they would enumerate over 131,000,000 residents of the country from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to families living in the remotest areas of the nation. Genealogists, social scientists, historians, and others, … Continue reading 1940 Census Release
Many, many years ago when I was shelving books in the MIT Humanities Library I was fortunate to have the benefit of advice from several members of the staff who took an interest in my “career.” One of them was the Science Librarian, Irma Johnson. I got to know Irma well because every summer she … Continue reading Thank You, Irma Johnson
