NARA is in the very early stages of developing a process for electronically requesting records (i.e., an online pull slip). We are currently concentrating on requirements. We invite you to attend one or both of two meetings to discuss what requirements and features you'd like to see for doing records requests electronically. Project director Rich Tomlinson will brief … Continue reading Do you dream about filling out your records pull slips online?
Month: June 2011
Results Should Not Vary: Pursuing Quality in Digitization Services
In Digitization Services, we’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about quality. What does it mean? How do we measure it? And why should we care about it? After the establishment of the Products and Services (P&S) web portal resource in 2010 (see the http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/?p=5320 blog post), Digitization Services knew we still had more … Continue reading Results Should Not Vary: Pursuing Quality in Digitization Services
Family Tree Friday: The National Youth Administration (1935-1943)
This week's post comes to you from guest blogger Jennifer Dryer, who works in the National Declassification Center at the National Archives. Jennifer is completing a cross-training assignment with the Archives I Research Support Branch, where she has been working on reference relating to the upcoming 1940 Census release. Some questions on the 1940 census … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: The National Youth Administration (1935-1943)
DC-Area Researchers briefing: Thursday, August 18th
We hope you will be able to join us for a Researcher Users Group briefing on Thursday, August 18th at 1:30 pm in the McGowan Theater at Archives I. As a follow up to the June meeting, this briefing will discuss the changes in public and researcher space in the National Archives Building in Washington, … Continue reading DC-Area Researchers briefing: Thursday, August 18th
Tag, You're It!
The Online Public Access prototype (OPA) just got an exciting new feature -- tagging! As you search the catalog, we now invite you to tag any archival description, as well as person and organization name records, with the keywords or labels that are meaningful to you. Our hope is that crowdsourcing tags will enhance the … Continue reading Tag, You're It!
Family Tree Friday: War of 1812 Passenger List
Today's post is brought to you by Claire Prechtel-Kluskens, Archivist in the Archives I Research Support Branch. June 18, 2011 marks the 199th anniversary of the beginning of the War of 1812. On June 18, 1812, in Washington, DC, the U.S. Congress declared war against Great Britain. On about the same date, nearly 3,400 miles … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: War of 1812 Passenger List
Family Tree Friday: Confederate POW Deaths & Burials Online
As a way to tie together all the Confederate prisoner of war records that we've discussed over the last several weeks, I thought you might want to know about a specific record the War Department compiled in the early 20th century to document all of the Confederate POWs who died in Federal custody during the … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: Confederate POW Deaths & Burials Online
I Found It in the National Archives! Contest
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? … Continue reading I Found It in the National Archives! Contest
Open Gov Goes Local! Transparency in Digitization Services
The Digitization Services or IDS (formerly known as the Special Media Preservation Division) is NARA’s primary source of in-house digitization and analog reformatting of motion picture film, audio, video, photographs, aerial film, textual documents, cartographic documents, microfilm, and microfiche. 2010 was a year of introspection and change for us. Inspired in part by the Open … Continue reading Open Gov Goes Local! Transparency in Digitization Services
Why so blue?
Starting on Monday, June 6th if you make copies in our research rooms in the Washington, DC, area you will notice a difference in your copies. Copies made on the self-service black and white printers in the research rooms or on the public use computers will be printed on Windsor Blue paper. Why are … Continue reading Why so blue?