Toward Equal Opportunities for Scholarship

Abstract

O NE of the small but pleasant aspects of cultural life in this Republic is that its archival and manuscript repositories have not been too overburdened with archivists and curators who assume that ownership is more important than scholarship. On the National Archives staff there are none. The professional staff organized in 1935 took for granted that it was to serve scholarship throughout the nation, not merely those scholars who could make their way to the National Archives building in Washington. This desire to serve has led to a program that is not nearly as well known among scholars as it should be-the National Archives Microfilm Publication program. This paper will recount some of its history, what it has meant most recently in its impact upon the work of the National Historical Publications Commission, and how it is being further developed as an aid to scholarship. The emphasis in the title of the paper, it should be remarked, is on the word toward and certainly not yet-if indeed it can ever be-on the bold words, equal opportunities. The use of microfilm by the National Archives to supplement reference service was begun as early as 1936, shortly after the opening of the building. Card files at the Library of Congress and at the Veterans Administration, as well as the Mereness Calendar at the University of Illinois, were placed on microfilm to augment the finding aids in the National Archives' Division of Reference. Microfilm was already beginning to be used in the solution of records problems involving storage and security, and its use as a medium for increasing and extending the availability to the public of documentary materials in the custody of the National Archives was natural and logical.' The immediate occasion for the development of the microfilm publication program was the need to minimize the deterioration of certain record Mr. Grover was Archivist of the United States from 1948-1965.