Two Steps Every Researcher Should Take

Every time I hear a story about a researcher spending money to travel to a National Archives facility only to find out the records they seek aren’t at that location, are unavailable for research, or that the reference staff are unable to assist the research in the short travel window they have available, I cringe. … Continue reading Two Steps Every Researcher Should Take

Online Public Access catalog down for maintenance May 10-25, 2013

The National Archives’ Online Public Access (OPA) system will be down for maintenance from May 10 to May 25, 2013. We are in the process of rolling out a new version of OPA that will bring the catalog up to date. After the updated system is rolled out, the catalog will be updated on a … Continue reading Online Public Access catalog down for maintenance May 10-25, 2013

Family Tree Friday: Census Bureau exhibit at the 1926 U.S. Sesquicentennial Exhibition, Part I

Today's post comes from guest blogger Doug Remley, who is a student research room technician in Research Services (RD-DC) at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.  Doug offers a history lesson on how the Census Bureau celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  Future posts will include some of the unique findings … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: Census Bureau exhibit at the 1926 U.S. Sesquicentennial Exhibition, Part I

DC-Area Researcher Forum Meeting Minutes from May 18th Available

Researchers are invited to read the minutes of the Researcher Forum meeting on May 18, 2012, posted to the DC-area Researcher Forum web page. The main feature of the meeting was a discussion with NARA’s digitization partners: Sabrina Petersen from Ancestry.com; Aaron Spencer from Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com); and John de Jong from FamilySearch.org. Rebecca Warlow … Continue reading DC-Area Researcher Forum Meeting Minutes from May 18th Available

New Microfilm Research Room Set to Open at Archives I on May 21

Today’s guest blog post comes from Rick Blondo, management and program analyst involved with NARA building projects. A new Microfilm Research Room is scheduled to open on Monday, May 21, 2012, in the Robert M. Warner Research Center in the National Archives Building, Washington, DC. It will house 27 researcher carrels, 5 public use computers … Continue reading New Microfilm Research Room Set to Open at Archives I on May 21

New Documerica set on Flickr

In honor of Earth Day, we have added a great new set of photographs from the Documerica collection to Flickr.  Boyd Norton, a photographer who is still greatly involved with nature photography, took photos of the National Parks in the southwest, and documented solar energy projects in Arizona and strip mining in Montana as a … Continue reading New Documerica set on Flickr

DC-Area Researcher Forum Notes Available from January 27 Meeting

Researchers are invited to read the notes of the Researcher Forum meeting held on January 27, 2012, which are posted to the DC-area Researcher Forum web page, http://www.archives.gov/dc-metro/researcher-forum/.  The main feature of the meeting was a demonstration of the newly launched Citizen Archivist Dashboard by Pamela Wright (NARA Chief Digital Access Strategist) and Meredith Stewart (NARA Open … Continue reading DC-Area Researcher Forum Notes Available from January 27 Meeting

Pardon Our Dust…And Our Noise

This post was written by guest blogger Diane Dimkoff, Director of Customer Services On Friday evening February 17 and Saturday February 18, the National Archives will be converting to a new copy card system and also replacing most of its self-service copiers. Contractors will be connecting and then testing equipment to make sure all is functioning properly on … Continue reading Pardon Our Dust…And Our Noise

Searching 40 TB of Electronic Records with the Swipe of a Finger

Imagine that you want to find electronic records related to a particular geographic location in a very large collection (40 TB and about 70 million files) of archival electronic records. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could pick up an iPad, have a map pop up on the screen, run your finger over the area … Continue reading Searching 40 TB of Electronic Records with the Swipe of a Finger