Today's post comes from our Tumblr guru and Today's Document lead, Darren Cole. “Where are the aliens?” “Did Nicholas Cage ever return the Declaration of Independence?” “What’s the worst amendment ever proposed?” These are just a sampling of the questions recently put to National Archives curators during our inaugural “Answer Time” Q&A session on Tumblr. On … Continue reading NARA’s Inaugural Tumblr Answer Time with Amending America Curators
What excites us most is the potential for creative and unexpected uses of our API by the public, for any purpose.
NARA is excited to participate in Government-wide Sunshine Week activities by launching our first Transcription Challenge in the National Archives Catalog! Here at the Archives, we like to say that there is a story in every box. Help us unlock those stories by transcribing the digitized records in the catalog. Our goal this week is … Continue reading Transcribe #1000pages for Sunshine Week
Are you interested in learning more about the many different projects and employees at the National Archives? We are excited to introduce a new staff-run Twitter account: @ThisisArchives! Each week, a different National Archives employee will take a turn on Twitter, sharing details about our profession, projects we are working on, and what it’s like to … Continue reading @ThisisArchives staff Twitter account
Today's post comes from Markus Most, Director of the Digitization Division at the National Archives. Here at the National Archives, we’re working on a new, cross-office project to make accessible audiovisual records of World War I and World War II. We are digitizing public domain films and photographs so that they will be available for … Continue reading Our National History and You
Today’s post comes from Ben Jordi, Technical Writer/Editor in the Office of the Federal Register. The National Archives’ Office of Innovation and Office of the Federal Register teamed up with Wikimedia D.C. to host OFR’s first Wikipedia Editathon on Friday, May 23, 2014 in our Innovation Hub. As part of our mission to inform the … Continue reading Federal Register Editathon
One of the chief goals of the National Archives is making our records- regardless of format- more accessible. Sometimes this means digitizing records and adding them to our catalog, but it also means creating ways for all US citizens to experience our collections. Accessibility of videos for the hearing impaired is very important to us, … Continue reading Calling Citizen Archivists to Crowdsource Video Captions!
Guest blogger Elizabeth Lieutenant, a Master’s student in Library and Information Science at The Catholic University of America, is a virtual intern in the Office of Innovation. This week we celebrated President’s Day, a U.S. federal holiday that officially honors George Washington’s birthday. While the holiday may be for George, we at the National Archives … Continue reading President's Day at the National Archives
Thanksgiving is an anticipated time of year…unless you’re a turkey! While our traditions today may not even include the iconic bird (hello, Tofurkey!), this holiday is still cherished as a time to gather with friends and family and give thanks. But before you start setting the table, enjoy a “harvest” of some of our favorite … Continue reading Ten Records We're Thankful to Have at the National Archives
Halloween is right around the corner, and at the National Archives we are well versed in the creepiest, weirdest records of the Federal government. Here's our list of favorites that are sure to make you shudder with fear! What's more dangerous- a poison bottle equipped with spikes or the poison itself?: In … Continue reading Weird Records from the Depths of the Archives
