n.a United States agency with infrastructure to manage, preserve, and make available federal recordsNational Archives Act 1934That the Archivist shall make to Congress, at the beginning of each regular session, a report for the preceding fiscal year as to the National Archives, the said report including a detailed statement of all accessions and of all receipts and expenditures on account of the said establishment.Bahmer 1955, 200The problem of late years has been one of putting on the brakes, of slowing up accessioning, of preventing overzealous records personnel in the agencies from using the National Archives as a dumping ground.Posner 1955, 208That the National Archives was able to work out its own destiny may be due in part at least to the status as an independent agency that the National Archives Act assigned to it.Posner 1955, 211In the field of records arrangement, we owe to the National Archives the concept of the record group, a pragmatic and hence enormously useful refinement of the French concept of the fond. It has made this time-honored tool applicable to the bulky records of the giant agencies of modern times. Add to this the records description program of the National Archives—with its record group registrations, an innovation; its preliminary inventories, each dealing with a single record group; and its reference information papers, each dealing with a single subject on which there is material in many record groups—all of them available to the scholar at a distance by means of the near-print process,—and you will admit that the National Archives’ contribution to the standard fields of archival administration has been significant.Chatfield 1968, 244At the same time a separate Records Management Division was established at the National Archives whose personnel was recruited from the field of management rather than from the archives field.McCoy 1974, 413Connor, however, was to provide the new National Archives with a competent staff, and he began the arduous work of rescuing and making available for research a great variety of federal records. Under his direction, the National Archives would pioneer in, among other things, methods of the repair and preservation of archives. It would also play the leading role in establishing a recognized archival profession in the United States, complete with training and publication programs and a professional organization.Gondos 1981, 176The National Archives as it came into being and as it was to be for fifteen years, between 1934 and 1949, an independent, professionally oriented archival agency, staffed with and led by historically trained men, was the fulfillment of the Jameson concept.Russell 1983, 279Historians, not archivists, are the ones who deserve the most credit for the establishment of the first state archives, the National Archives, and a number of the leading manuscript departments.Viola 1984, 21Welcome to the National Archives, the nation’s memory, where the Archivist of the United States and his staff hold in trust the documentary legacy of our past. To many Americans the National Archives is a place of mystery, difficult to penetrate, even more difficult to comprehend. We hope this book will erase some of the mystique, for the National Archives is a national treasure that belongs to us all. ¶ To begin with, the “National Archives of the United States” is the official title for that body of federal government records that are permanently preserved because they have historical or other research value. The National Archives is a massive neo-classical two-city-block building in Washington, D.C., and it is also a network of Presidential Libraries, Regional Archives Branches, and Federal Records Centers across the country. Its official institutional title is the National Archives and Records Service, and it is administered by the General Services Administration. ¶ The mission of the National Archives is to identify and ensure the preservation of those records of the United States government considered to have continuing historical value so they are available for us by federal agencies and the public.Schellenberg 1996, 31In the Act of June 19, 1934, which created the National Archives, Congress made the Archivist of the United States responsible for appraising records reported for disposal by Federal agencies.Whorley 2005, 111Thus, the records within the custody of the National Archives are the bedrock for holding the federal government accountable to its citizens. As a result, the National Archives continues to function as the important collective memory of our society.a United States agency building in Washington, DC, that headquarters the entity with responsibility for federal recordsKimberly 1938, 111It is the purpose of this article to describe the procedures and equipment now operating in the National Archives, Washington, D.C.Kimberly 1938, 112The fumigating plant now operating in the National Archives is capable of treating 3300 cubic feet of records in a working day.Hamer 1942, 84The records in the National Archives have been used almost since the first truck load was placed in one of the stack areas.Hancock 1966, 23When local sources did not provide sufficient information in 1961 about Civil War contracts of Brandywine—Wilmington business establishments for a museum exhibit, he was commissioned to spend a week in the National Archives, searching out items for copying.Gustafson 1976, 271In 1952 the Library of Congress transferred the original engrossed copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the National Archives. Together with the Bill of Rights, they are the Charters of Freedom, the most precious documents in the National Archives of the United States.Viola 1984, 21The National Archives is a massive neo-classical two-city-block building in Washington, D.C., and it is also a network of Presidential Libraries, Regional Archives Branches, and Federal Records Centers across the country.Schellenberg 1996, 163In the National Archives, steel containers were initially installed for storing documents horizontally. . . . It is obvious that a public archival institution needs to have proper physical facilities for housing the materials that are turned over to it by the government it serves.Posner 2006, 129The Americans know well how to attract at least the attention, if not the understanding, of the public, as may be seen from the fact that in the year 1938 more than 30,000 visitors were conducted through the National Archives.Errickson 2016Jameson continued to push for a Hall of Records, now developing it into a call for a National Archives. In 1907 he spoke with President William Taft about the importance of an archives building to protect documents from fire while also serving as a place for research.McGovern 2018, 12FIGURE 2. Statues greeting visitors to the National Archives in Washington, D.C.an agency that preserves and makes available official records of a specific countryPosner 1955, 212The final organization of the National Archives into branches charged with the administration of records from functionally related provenances has much in common with that of the former German National Archives and—I am improvident enough to mention it—with that of the Soviet Archives as it emerged in 1918.Fant 1958a, 359The National Archives of India reported at the end of last November that work on its multivolumed Calendar of Persian Correspondence had reached the following stages: volume 10 (1792–93) was being printed, volume 11 (1794–95) was being indexed, and volume 12 (1796–97) was being compiled.Burke 1959, 275The first idea of the French revolutionaries was to burn the documentary relics of feudalism; it was only on second thought that the great French National Archives was established to preserve the rights of individuals.Burke 1959, 290The Central African Archives became the National Archives of Rhodesia and Nyasaland; and the National Archives Act, 1958, enshrined the principle that each Government was the owner and disposer of its own property.Burke 1959, 291The National Archives of the Gold Coast (now Ghana) was established by the Public Archives Ordinance, 1955, which came into operation on August 1, 1956.Burke 1959, 293Public archives are made a select category of public records—being those not in use, whatever their age and wherever they are. If they are over 25 years old, and if the Chief Archivist thinks they are worth preserving, they must be transferred to the National Archives.Prasad 1978, 53Although there is no archival law, the National Archives has the responsibility for records management in all the five hundred agencies and departments of the Government of India scattered throughout the country.Iwakura 1978, 77The National Archives is charged with preserving administrative records and archives, and with providing them for public research as well as for the general business of the government.Grover 1984, 238As a result of the founding and activities of these and similar institutions, the National Archives tends to concentrate on preserving public archives and leaves collecting private archives to them.Barritt 1988, 337The school occupies a small building adjacent to the National Archives in The Hague.Harris 1997, 137And they do not preserve much—for instance, at present the National Archives aims to preserve five per cent of all public records.Momryk 2001, 153The National Archives had acquired the records of the various federal government departments which presented an official perspective on Canadian government operations and activities and on Canadian history generally.Procter 2005, xiThe process of selecting records, a keystone of professional activity, will shape the record as it appears to the future (the record of government in the case of the National Archives), and the insuperable dilemmas this presents have underpinned the appraisal policies of many national archives in recent years.Procter 2005, xxiThat such access is an indicator of democracy was evidenced by the post-apartheid government’s readiness to reorganise and empower the National Archives; yet, according to Harris, after 1998 a “re-bureaucritisation” process took place during which access to records has been far more tightly restricted that the National Archives Act intended.Gilliland et al. 2008, 101Milestones in the development of Taiwan’s archival education infrastructure were the National Archives Act of Taiwan (1999), which led to the establishment of the National Archives in 2001, and the promulgation of a series of archival regulations. . . . ¶ . . . The National Archives of Malaysia has offered courses in records management and conservation and bookbinding through its Malaysian Technical Cooperation Program since 1984.Gilliland et al. 2008, 101–102The National Archives Law (Law No. 79, June 1999) also stipulates that the National Archives of Japan will provide training in the preservation and use of government records and other important historical materials as a function of the National Archives.
Notes
This term in the first and third senses also is rendered “national archives” with the same meaning in many cases. In the first sense, it was the original name for the National Archives and Records Administration and is currently a short form of it as well.
