n.records created and originally kept by an individualWiley 1954, 326History deals in large measure with human beings, and I know of no better way of understanding people of past times than through the study of their personal papers and the personal papers of their intimate associates.Mearns 1957, 317Preferably, a collection of personal papers should be extensive. It should cover a lifetime and fully relate its incidents. Indeed, content should be so varied as to be important not only to the study of a career but perhaps more important to the study of a series of subjects as well. . . . ¶ A collection of personal papers should not be divided between two or more repositories.Fogerty 1983, 151Gaps have always existed in collections of personal papers and organizational records; it is highly unlikely that any individual, for instance, will leave a complete record of the thoughts and motivations that surrounded his actions.Klaassen 1983, 21Personal papers of notable figures are often accepted with the understanding that all or parts of them will be opened only at, or some specified time after, the individual’s death.Henry 1998, 315The value of archives is cultural and humanistic, not just bureaucratic. Archival programs that collect records or personal papers, which may contain electronic media, find the new definition of record [as evidence of a business transaction] bewildering. Personal papers may never show “evidence” of “business transactions,” but such archival sources provide a wealth of information needed for society’s memory.Pollard 2001, 137The realm of personal papers has been notably neglected in the course of the development of archival theory. From the beginning, government and corporate archives have been the primary focus, and personal papers have been largely excluded from the discourse.Hodson 2004, 195Any of these invasions of privacy, but especially the first two—intrusion into an individual’s private affairs, and public disclosure of embarrassing or private facts about an individual—can occur as a result of a manuscript repository acquiring and making available the personal papers of a living or recently deceased person.Morris 2005, 23For over half a century, scholars assumed that Earhart’s early writings and other personal papers burned in a fire that destroyed part of the Putnams’ home in Rye, New York, in 1934.Daniels et al. 2015, 248Within a few months after the fist advisory board meeting, the LUMA project had received a small number of donations, the most substantial being the personal papers of the late musician Jon Cook (1972–2013), which totals 1.75 linear feet.Gerrard 2015, 5The main objective was to educate attendees about the importance of documenting end-of-life decisions regarding their personal papers so that they will not be discarded by friends or relatives.documents unrelated to work but maintained at a place of work by an employee of the United States federal governmentU.S. Code, 44 USC 2201The term “personal records” means all documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion thereof, of a purely private or nonpublic character which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President. Such term includes—(A) diaries, journals, or other personal notes serving as the functional equivalent of a diary or journal which are not prepared or utilized for, or circulated or communicated in the course of, transacting Government business; (B) materials relating to private political associations, and having no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President; and (C) materials relating exclusively to the President’s own election to the office of the Presidency; and materials directly relating to the election of a particular individual or individuals to Federal, State, or local office, which have no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.NARA 2017a, 11NARA is responsible for the planning and moving of all Presidential records and gifts, and any personal papers that are planned for donation to the government.NARA 2018aPersonal papers are documentary materials belonging to an individual that are not used to conduct agency business. They relate solely to an individual’s personal and private affairs or are used exclusively for that individual’s convenience. They may refer to or comment on the subject matter of agency business, provided they are not used to conduct that business. In contrast to both records and nonrecord materials, personal papers are not Government owned.
