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 … Continue reading Tell us your stories!
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
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
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, … Continue reading Meet Our Wikipedian in Residence: Dominic McDevitt-Parks
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 … Continue reading Ask Away on #Ask Archivists Day!
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 … Continue reading May 18th Citizen Archivist Program
The following is a guest post from Jane Long, Preservation Officer at the National Archives: Emergencies can happen anytime, but a little preparedness goes a long way to diminish their effects. Every year, NARA participates in MayDay, a national event to raise awareness of the importance of taking simple steps to protect people and records. … Continue reading MayDay at the National Archives
The following is a guest post from Aimee Primeaux, Preservation Program Officer at the National Archives: Preservation is at the heart of what we do here at NARA: Preservation Programs has joined forces with SAA’s Preservation Section to create an e-poster in recognition of Preservation Week. This poster outlines basic strategies to preserve your collections, … Continue reading NARA Participates in Preservation Week
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 … Continue reading National Archives' First Wikipedian in Residence: This article is a stub.
On April 13-14, Fynnette Eaton (NHA) and Kevin Devorsey (NWM) participated in a stakeholders meeting of the Unified Digital Format Registry (UDFR), held at the Library of Congress, along with 22 cultural memory institutions concerned with digital preservation. UDFR aims to pool the expertise of these archival communities to document characteristics that can be used to identify file formats, and then to document the information in an authoritative knowledge base.
