National Archives And Records Administration Research Articles

Examining the ethical dilemmas of political impartiality in records administration: a phronetic approach

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the ethical dilemmas faced by records administrators concerning political impartiality by examining the case of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in the USA, which has faced reputational challenges due to perceived political bias.Design/methodology/approachThis paper proposes a phronetic approach to resolve the ethical dilemmas associated with political impartiality in records administration. This approach emphasizes practical wisdom and ethical decision-making, offering a unique and effective way to address the challenges faced by presidential record archivists.FindingsThe proposed phronetic approach provides a means to resolve the ethical challenges posed by political impartiality in records administration, with a particular focus on NARA. By taking a transparent and impartial approach, agencies can minimize criticism and ensure their continued ability to equitably serve the public.Practical implicationsThe phronetic approach offers a framework for addressing ethical dilemmas related to political impartiality in records administration, with potential implications for other independent agencies facing similar challenges.Originality/valueThis paper offers a unique perspective on the ethical dilemmas of political impartiality in records administration and proposes a practical and effective approach to resolving these challenges. It contributes to the broader discussion on the intersection of ethics and public administration.

New Resources for California Scholars

Research Article| May 01 2023 New Resources for California Scholars: The American National Red Cross Historical Nurse Files, ca. 1916 to ca. 1959 Diane M. T. North Diane M. T. North DIANE M. T. NORTH is a retired History professor, University of Maryland Global Campus, from whom she received the 2018 Stanley J. Drazek Teaching Excellence Award. She is the author of California at War: The State and the People during World War I (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2019). North, a member of the journal's Editorial Board, received the Western Association of Women Historians' Ridge Prize for the best scholarly article published in 2020: “California and the 1918-1920 Influenza Pandemic,” California History, Vol. 97, no. 3 (Fall 2020): 3-36. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California History (2023) 100 (2): 82–84. https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2023.100.2.82 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Diane M. T. North; New Resources for California Scholars: The American National Red Cross Historical Nurse Files, ca. 1916 to ca. 1959. California History 1 May 2023; 100 (2): 82–84. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2023.100.2.82 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCalifornia History Search On November 21, 2022, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) launched the redesign of its online catalog.1 One of the resources helpful for California scholars is “The American National Red Cross Historical Nurse Files, ca. 1916–ca. 1959,” a portion of the collection of the records of the American National Red Cross, 1881–2008 (ARC). These archives offer a treasure trove of information about the dedicated nurses who tended to the sick, wounded, and dying during World War I and World War II and their subsequent relationship with the ARC. The material includes correspondence, applications, biographical questionnaires, letters of reference, assignments, military orders, efficiency reports, memoranda, press clippings, and photographs.2 For example, the National Archives digitized seventy-two images of the records for Stockton native Elizabeth Haywood Ashe, who served as a chief nurse for the ARC’s Children’s Bureau in France during World War I (Figures 1 and... You do not currently have access to this content.

Documenting Detention: The Politics of Archiving Immigration Enforcement Records in the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

On 14 July 2017, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) announced that it would shorten the time period for holding eleven kinds of noncitizen detainee records and invited public comment on these changes. NARA stated that the decision to recategorize many of these records as “temporary” was because they held “little or no research value.” The files included records of abuse, assault, and deaths of people in immigration detention. Curious how NARA valued research, we designed a project asking what could be learned—about abuse in detention and NARA—from these documents. This article describes our methodological approach and our findings and discusses the implications of both for future research on immigration, government archiving practices, and accountability. We submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for the eleven document types slated for earlier disposal and analyzed Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s documentation of neglect and abuse in immigration detention. To do so, we traced the documents’ intertextuality, showing how each document relied on—and further produced—other documents. Challenging NARA’s calculative logics, we show that disposing of these documents would widen gaps, holes, and silences in an already partial, state-centric archive, limiting which future histories of U.S. immigration policies might be told.

David Ernest Alsobrook

David Ernest Alsobrook Scotty E. Kirkland (bio) David ernest alsobrook, ph.d., the seventy-first president of the Alabama Historical Association, died on October 28, 2021, after a brief illness. He was seventy-five years old. I first met David in 2008 and was privileged to serve on his staff at the History Museum of Mobile from 2011 until 2015. Our overlapping research interests and similar upbringings cemented our fast friendship. For the past decade, we often served as "second readers," behind our spouses, of course, of each other's writing projects. I was undeniably the junior partner in that arrangement and benefited greatly from it. In the days after David's passing, I had separate conversations with Lonnie Burnett and Matthew Downs about our mutual friend and confidante and of the great loss to the Alabama historical community. I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss David's scholarship and professional service, particularly in the journal where much of his work appeared. In doing so, I recognize two things: that many who read this remembrance were lucky to have known David far longer than I, and any accounting of his contributions to Alabama history will somehow seem inadequate and incomplete. Such was the depth of his knowledge and the scope of his work. Born in Eufaula in 1946, David grew up in Mobile, where his father worked as a construction supervisor and his mother served as a teacher in the public school system. He earned an undergraduate degree in [End Page 4] secondary education with a concentration in English from Auburn University in 1968. He taught English and Social Studies during the 1968-69 school year at Eufaula High School. Thereafter, he taught for three years in Mobile County's recently integrated Theodore High School. During the summer terms, David pursued a master's degree in American History from West Virginia University, which he completed in 1972. His thesis explored the career of William Dorsey Jelks, a longtime Eufaula newspaper editor and governor of Alabama from 1901 until 1907. David subsequently authored the Jelks entry in Samuel L. Webb and Margaret E. Armbrester's edited volume Alabama Governors: A Political History of the State (Tuscaloosa, 2001). Leaving the secondary classroom behind, David returned to Auburn to pursue a doctorate, which he completed in 1983, writing a dissertation on Progressive-Era Mobile. As the first graduate of Auburn's Archival Training Program, he set a high bar for those who would come after him. Following a year as an archivist at the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) in 1975-76, he entered into the service of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), where he remained for three decades. His tenure included two stints working as archivist and White House liaison with NARA's Office of Presidential Libraries. David was a supervisory archivist at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and was the founding director of the George H. W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton presidential libraries—the first person tasked with launching two such institutions. Returning to Alabama upon his federal retirement in 2007, he was director of the History Museum of Mobile for eight years. During a writing career which spanned some four decades, David authored more than twenty articles—and contributed as many book reviews—in a wide range of scholarly journals, including Provenance, Gulf South Historical Review, Government Information Quarterly, Alabama Historical Quarterly, the Atlanta Historical Journal, and the Annuals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. In more recent years, he contributed to Alabama Heritage magazine and the online Encyclopedia of Alabama as well. [End Page 5] The greatest corpus of his work was to be found within the pages of the Alabama Review, the journal of the AHA, of which he was an active member for more than four decades. His first article appeared in the July 1977 issue. Although a mere five pages in length, the piece introduced into the historical record a fascinating April 1898 letter from Alabama congressman Henry D. Clayton on the topic of the impending war with Spain. Addressed to Governor Joseph F. Johnston, the letter expressed Clayton's contrary opinion of both the inevitability...

Examination of date tampering on Abraham Lincoln's pardon of Patrick Murphy, RG 153 entry 15, case MM761 (ARC identifier: 1839980)

On January 26, 2011, the Pardon of Patrick Murphy, a document in the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Record Group 153 (RG 153) Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army), was submitted to conservation for examination. The record was examined with special focus on the handwritten “1865” to the left of Abraham Lincoln's signature. All analysis techniques were non-sampling, non-invasive, and non-damaging as retaining the integrity of cultural heritage is very similar to the forensic handling of evidence. Microscopy, transmitted light, Ultraviolet-induced visible fluorescence, and X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy analysis confirmed that the ink used to write the “5”, in the April 14, 1865 date is different from the remaining text written by Lincoln and these analytical forensic-inspired techniques allowed scientists and conservators to “set the record straight” about the modern forged “5” for future generations of researchers.

Virtual Deinstallation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of life and how work is accomplished. Travel restrictions and health concerns have hindered courier trips, making virtual condition reports and deinstallations necessary to retrieve loans. However, transmission pathways of the virus and the related viral attenuation on different materials and surfaces influence employee safety concerns when multiple people interact with surfaces, requiring quarantine periods or disinfection guidelines to be written to address these concerns. This paper illustrates how the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) worked together virtually to safely return an important 1933 map to the US from England using quarantine periods.

Evaluating Transparency During ICE Detainee Record Disposition

In December 2019, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) approved an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Schedule DAA-0567-2015-0013 request for disposition of detainee records that included sexual assault and abuse allegation information. Despite receiving a record number of objections, NARA did not change the temporary status of the documents in question. This essay examines ICE record creation and NARA record handling policies, as well the Freedom of Information Act’s role in the transparency of both entities.

NARA Escape and Evasion Reports

This Research Note gives a brief introduction to the series of Escape and Evasion reports held by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Making up a rich source base, these documents can be used to explore the operational history of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), the history of MIS-X, escape and evasion planning during the Second World War, diplomatic history, and social history. In addition, they offer a very compelling story of the relationships that flourished between aircrews and European civilians during the war.

Documenting ICE

On July 14th, 2017, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) posted a notice in the Federal Register that U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was seeking permission to destroy eleven types of records related to people detained by ICE. These include records of sexual abuse and assault, escapes, deaths, solitary confinement, and complaints made to a hotline by those in ICE custody. ICE requested timelines for the destruction of these records ranging from three to twenty years and in late August 2017, NARA granted preliminary approval of this request. This perspective essay seeks to shed light on the vast array of arguments asserting the value of these records to the people in ICE detention. Moreover, it attempts to weigh the evidence of ICE’s recordkeeping practices, the preponderance of which points to ICE’s inability and aversion to accurate, truthful and accessible documentation surrounding its operation. This exploration ultimately considers this historical moment as one in which archives can show their value as resources for government accountability, historical research and communities of migrants and refugees to argue that it is incumbent upon archivists to seize the opportunity.

제2대와 제4대 국회의 학살사건 처리 비교 연구 : 특별위원회 활동을 중심으로

This paper demonstrates how the National Assembly in South Korea(hereinafter: NA) started investigation on massacres, which had been committed before and after the Korean War(1950-53), in 1951 and 1960. By analyzing a wide variety of materials — such as press reports, official papers from the NA and the Government, published memoirs from people concerned and documents from the US National Archives and Records Administration(NARA), it also identifies the reason for differences between the both. In each period, the NA established the special committees for investigating the massacres and for assuaging popular sentiment. Although their activities terminated by superficially checking such incidents, in 1951 the one insisted that perpetrators should be punished, in 1960, furthermore, the other asked that some compensations for the victims should be demanded. This difference was due to the social advance of the bereaved family in democratic process after the April Revolution(1960).

Los Estados Unidos y el régimen de Franco, 1945-1973. De la «kick-Franco-out-now-policy» al «solving the "Spanish Problem"»: modernización y apertura exterior

The studies on the American democracy promotion policy towards Francoist Spain have been many years relegated once taken for granted the propagandistic nature of the American public discourse. However, in order to assess what were Washington’s real aims and determinants in its relations with Franco and his regime, in the first part of this article we briefly examine the changes operated in American geostrategic conceptions from the 30s onwards. In the second part, in what constitutes the core of this paper, a more detailed focus is put on the examination of the Spanish case from the documentation on Spain between the years 1945-1973 preserved in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at College Park, Md.

Researching the President’s [Redacted]

Presidential libraries hold a bounty of archival records, which is why National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests constitute a vital data source. However, standard protocols impose an inferential dilemma: researchers get the released sample without much information about the broader population, making it impossible to appraise the former relative to the latter. Drawing on a large FOIA request (and successful appeal) from the George W. Bush Presidential Library, this study affords such a test. Results show NARA archivists typically withheld outwardly unimportant records—e.g., weekends, holidays, and other uneventful days—though “response set” may have occasionally affected their redact-or-withhold decisions. After demonstrating how even seemingly innocuous omissions can bias estimates of presidential behavior, the study concludes with practical advice for researchers submitting FOIA requests to presidential libraries.

In Defense of Presidential Libraries

The recent announcement by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Barack Obama Foundation that there will be no Barack Obama Presidential Library has received very little attention or scrutiny. This essay examines that decision and places it in historical context based on the author’s expertise gained through years of working within NARA at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum and writing about the early history of NARA and the presidential library system. The essay explores the many ways in which the failure to build an Obama Library adversely impacts researcher access to important historical information, damages the quality of museum exhibits at a privately run Obama museum, threatens the presidential library system as we know it, and ultimately impairs our democracy.

El ocaso del latifundio Greene: ilegalidad, política internacional y agrarismo en la frontera Sonora-Arizona, 1954-1958

Este texto describe las vicisitudes que rodearon a la expropiación del Latifundio Greene en 1958, y explica cómo el movimiento campesino del noroeste mexicano y la política diplomática de Estados Unidos, se conjugaron para que se expropiara esta propiedad, la más grande en Sonora y bajo el control de compañías estadounidenses. También es un ejemplo de cómo el régimen priista de mediados del siglo XX, abrió una válvula para liberar presión y evitar descontento en el campo. Este artículo es producto de una tesis doctoral, la cual se realizó contrastando información encontrada en la prensa de la época, el Archivo General de la Nación y los National Archives of Recording Record (nara) del gobierno de Estados Unidos, así como algunos textos obtenidos en espacios web.

A Tale of Two Outliers: Evidence-Based Management in Non-ARL Research Libraries and Pre-NARA Presidential Libraries

ABSTRACTAdministrators in libraries of all types face the challenge of managing and planning in times of static or declining funding and rapidly changing technology. What tools do they use to gather and employ data for decision-making and evidence-based management? Are the same tools and techniques useful for all types of libraries? Although there are established measurements and metrics for academic libraries, there are few, if any, for others such as hybrid presidential libraries which are not part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) system. This column identifies the metrics used by the pre-NARA presidential libraries and compares them to metrics used by a subgroup of Carnegie Research 1 and Research 2 libraries, those that do not participate in Association of Research Libraries (ARL) statistics program. It identifies similarities and differences.

Digital disruption at the U.S. National Archives

The history of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) becoming a digital agency is the history of NARA going from an inward-focused agency to an agency that is opening up to collaborate with others and using new technologies to do so. When the Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, came to lead the agency in 2009, he said that for many users, “if it isn’t online, it doesn’t exist.” He moved the agency out of its twentieth century model of access and led it into a new era of digital access, which it continues to pursue today. At the beginning of 2009, NARA had one blog, a catalogue with relatively few digital copies available, and no innovation goals. Today, NARA boasts 150 projects on over a dozen platforms, a social catalogue with over 17 million digital copies, and the agency’s first Innovation Hub.

ERA 2.0: The national archives new framework for electronic records preservation

ABSTRACTThe United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is refactoring its Electronic Records Archive (ERA) systems used for scheduling, transferring, processing, reviewing, describing, transforming, and storing electronic records received from U.S. government agencies for permanent preservation in support of long‐term public access to federal records. The project is following an Agile approach, toward the end of implementing a modular, cloud‐based suite of tools and microservices to support archival functions across the electronic records lifecycle. The implementation will also upgrade digital preservation functionality extant in the current production system, and enable additional efficiencies and automation in the processing of electronic records at scale to make records available to the public more quickly.

Presidential Libraries as Performance: Curating American Character from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush by Jodi Kanter

Reviewed by: Presidential Libraries as Performance: Curating American Character from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush by Jodi Kanter Jennifer Carpenter Presidential Libraries as Performance: Curating American Character from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush. By Jodi Kanter. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016. Pp. 179. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index.) Visitors to presidential libraries expect to discover a president’s early influences, journey with him on his rise to power, evaluate his domestic and international policies, relive his political struggles, and delight in touching personal stories about life in the White House. What they perhaps do not expect to encounter is a lens through which to understand how to be an American. Presidential Libraries as Performance by Jodi Kanter demonstrates the myriad ways these museums define and influence cultural identity and suggests how they can better mirror the nuanced realities of the Oval Office, its place in a period’s unique social and political climate, and the complexities of American character. Presidential libraries, whose records are administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), but whose exhibits are often managed in partnership with private foundations, are—and should be—more than static chronicles of the commander in chief’s time in office. Kanter evaluates narrative themes and exhibition techniques employed at these sites and considers how they affect visitors’ understanding of both the library’s namesake and their own role in public life. The approach is wholesale, moving beyond the exhibit space to consider how the entire museum site and its architecture convey certain messages. Case studies and comparisons reveal critical tensions. Presidential family in-fighting, funding, and issues of artifact selection and curation reveal a constant negotiation that results in different institutional arrangements and types of exhibits. There is no off-the-shelf plan for presidential libraries. Kanter keeps readers’ interest and challenges them to become more observant and critical visitors by helping them understand the stories behind the libraries’ creations, their strengths and shortcomings, and the differences among them. Kanter debunks the myth of presidential individual agency and calls for [End Page 118] forthcoming and inclusive exhibits that better resonate with visitors and honor their own political voices. Some of this work has already begun. Several sites have redone displays to include omitted and controversial topics (for example, the Watergate scandal exhibit at the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, opened in 2011) and to invite meaningful visitor participation (such as the 9/11 gallery at the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas, Texas). Kanter urges museum professionals to continue this work by offering suggestions ranging from the practical to the creative, but as an interdisciplinary analysis, her book will appeal to scholars of modern presidential history, politics, cultural identity, and American Studies. Presidential Libraries as Performance includes descriptive vignettes and assessments of Texas’s own Lyndon B. Johnson, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush Libraries’ exhibits. One museum feature excluded from the study is the gift shop, which, though beyond the scope of Kanter’s focus, could provide an interesting look at performance (presidential and generally American) vis-à-vis consumerism. Still, in the age of 24/7-news-cycle-and-Twitter-fueled political theater, the suggestion that the presidential library could recast itself as a place for open, critically honest discourse instead of as a final word on executive legacy, as many presidents may hope, is a refreshing thought. Jennifer Carpenter Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Copyright © 2017 The Texas State Historical Association

Tweets may be archived: Civic engagement, digital preservation and obama white house social media data

ABSTRACTAs part of his presidential transition, the administration of Barack Obama included social media data among the materials transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). In addition, this social media collection comprising data from Twitter, Facebook and Vine was distributed to organizations and researchers to explore and investigate. In this paper, we present our initial observations on the first social media presidency through the lens of its data, extracted from their native platforms. While the data speak to the engagement cultivated by the administration in its use of social media, the collection contains as many questions as it does answers. The completeness, metadata and accessibility of these materials remain unclear, potentially limiting the use of the collections in research and beyond. The paper analyzes platform‐specific issues and offers potential solutions to address the preservation and access challenges to social media data. We conclude with implications for the digital preservation community and social media researchers to consider when approaching social media data collections.

Benchmarking: the Search for Peers. A Hybrid Library's Experience

ABSTRACTAlthough there are established measurements and metricsfor academic libraries, there are few, if any, for presidential libraries, especially hybrid presidential libraries. The presidential library system, part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), administers and defines metrics for 13 libraries documenting the lives and work of U.S. presidents since Herbert Hoover (1929–1933). There is no equivalent system for the non-NARA Presidential Libraries, such as the ALPLM, that documents the lives of earlier presidents. Can the non-NARA Libraries be considered a peer group for benchmarking? This column examines benchmarking and the attempts of the ALPLM to define a peer group.