Our mission statement reads "NARA ensures for the Citizen and the Public Servant, for the President and the Congress and the courts, ready access to essential evidence." The records we hold are certainly valuable for historians, but more than that, they document the rights of American citizens, the actions of federal officials and the national experience. The key was that the material was not available until the work was completely finished.Īt the National Archives we also process newly accessioned records as they come into our custody, but as soon as they are officially accessioned they become available for research. This could take several years depending on the initial condition and size of the collection and the availability of staff to do the work.
Processing included not only intellectual control, but boxing and foldering with conservation quality housings as well. When I worked at the Library of Congress, manuscripts were not made available to researchers until a collection was completely processed. In an archives with holdings as large as NARA often the contents of many dozens or even thousands of boxes may be described in no more than a few sentences. In a library or manuscript collection it is not unusual to know not only the title of each folder of loose papers, but the individual contents of each of the folders within a box. Because the intellectual organizing principle in an archives is very broad, intellectual control is likely to be broader and far less detailed than it would be in a manuscript repository. The largest of these includes more than 273,530 cubic feet of records, the nine next largest range in size between 39,457 cubic feet to 87,530 cubic feet. At NARA the millions of records are contained in just 550 record groups. Because archives are broader in scope than personal or literary papers, it is not unusual for their organizing segments to become quite large.
In a business or other organization, the archives would document how and when business was transacted. At the National Archives and Records Administration or NARA, that activity is the Federal Government. Nonetheless, they are a useful way to distinguish between archives, manuscript repositories, and libraries.Īrchives are organically connected to their creating entity and usually document an activity rather than a person. National Archives, they do not apply in all instances and may not apply equally at other institutions. While these intellectual differences almost always apply to the U. This is true from a physical point of view however, from an intellectual perspective there are some differences. Both are on paper for the most part, and the treatment challenges would seem to be similar. paper conservator hears the terms "archival materials" and "manuscripts", images of paper with handwritten or typewritten text immediately come to mind. Before I do that, however, I would like to outline some interesting distinctions between a library and an archives that I have come to understand gradually in my 30 years of working in both kinds of institutions. The answers we reached may not apply to other archival institutions, but the questions are valid and may help others determine what course to pursue as they weigh mass deacidification options. In the next few minutes I would like to review the factors we considered when we made our initial decisions not to become actively involved in a mass deacidification program. Judging by the level of response to this conference, many other institutions and professionals are feeling the need to review the current state of the field as well. This conference is one step in that process.
We are now at a point where it makes sense to review our position. Over the last few years there have been a number of exciting new developments in the field. On the other hand, it is entirely consistent with our stated long-term policy to continue to monitor the developments in the field of mass deacidification. At first glance, it may seem strange for us to convene a conference on deacidification when our institutional involvement in mass deacidification is observational rather than active. The National Archives and Records Administration is not now involved in a mass deacidification program. Mass Deacidification: Considerations for Archivesīy Norvell Jones, Former Chief, Conservation Laboratory, National Archives and Records Administration
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