NARA Explains Proposed Research Room Changes

NARA Explains Proposed Research Room Changes

The National Archives and Records Administration released a statement correcting what it calls "erroneous" information about planned changes to its Washington, DC, research facility.The plans were publicized yesterday on the National Genealogical Society (NGS) UpFront blog. The NGS post said NARA wanted to reduce research space, move and reduce...

The National Archives and Records Administration released a statement correcting what it calls “erroneous” information about planned changes to its Washington, DC, research facility.

The plans were publicized yesterday on the National Genealogical Society (NGS) UpFront blog.

The NGS post said NARA wanted to reduce research space, move and reduce the number of microfilm readers, eliminate the military services research room, and eliminate self-serve microfilm pulling in favor of a system that required staff to pull film. The reason? To expand the exhibit area and shops.

I asked NARA about the changes and was sent this statement, which also will be posted on NARA’s website today.

In short, changes are proposed, but according NARA, research space will increase, the microfilm reading room and self service microfilm will not be eliminated, and the lecture room will remain. Plans for the consultation area will follow the service model at the Archives II research facility in College Park, Md.

Here’s the statement:

The National Archives and Records Administration continually looks at ways to improve and increase our services to visitors and researchers. We conduct this review to ensure that we continue to provide the highest level of services to our regular clientele and to extend our services to potential users with different backgrounds and expectations.

It’s come to our attention that our researcher community may have received erroneous information about our plans for some adjustments to the Archives I research rooms. The following information is an outline of what we are considering.

Are you reducing the size of the Finding Aids/Consultation Room?

No. Current plans would more than double that space.

The current room on the ground floor of the National Archives Building (Room G-28) serves as the finding aids room, the consultation area, and as office space for three staff members. The area available in this space for consultation with the public is approximately 450 square feet and has three consultation tables.

We are proposing to move the consultation area from G-28 to the adjacent area which is currently the National Archives Library, G-30. We will use approximately 1100 square feet of what is now Library space for this consultation area. The space will have eight tables for consultation.

So, we will more than double the area and number of tables for researchers to consult with staff and use the finding aids. The three staff members who currently have their workspace in G-28 will have new workstations adjacent to the research room that they can use to do other work when they are not providing direct consultation service.

This plan is based on the successful model that has been in place for several years for consultants at Archives II in College Park.

Are you eliminating the Microfilm Reading Room?

No. Over the last few years use of our microfilm holdings has decreased by 70 percent. In fiscal year 2000 we had 53,000 microfilm researcher visits; in fiscal year 2009 we had 16,000 microfilm research visits. When our microfilm reading room was first designed and built we estimated the need for 100 microfilm readers. Because of digitization and other factors, there no longer is the need for so many microfilm readers. So we are considering reducing the number of microfilm machines to 30 and increasing the number of public access computers to meet the demand for the old and the new technology. We will maintain the number of microfilm machines at a level that is needed by those researchers who continue to have the need for microfilm.

Are you eliminating self-service microfilm?

No. For the convenience of both researchers and staff, the National Archives maintains a policy of allowing researchers to browse our microfilm cabinets and select their own microfilm. We will continue with this policy as long as research demand warrants it. We may, however, relocate the microfilm to another public area adjacent to the microfilm reading room.

Are you eliminating the Lecture Room?

No. Our current lecture room on the ground floor (G-24) is used daily for programs such as our very popular “Know Your Records” seminars. Any renovation of the ground floor research area will include a lecture room so our researchers, visitors, and NARA staff can continue to use it for critical outreach and other activities.

What are you doing with the Orientation and Registration Area?

While we may eventually re-locate those areas physically, we have no immediate plans to do so. We of course would not eliminate this critical function, and will ensure it is located appropriately.

These changes to the National Archives Building should improve the services we provide to researchers. No functions or services are being eliminated or reduced.

To ensure that the changes meet the needs of researchers, we intend to continue to have our quarterly meetings with our Archives I user group to keep users informed and solicit their comments.

Related Products

3 Comments

Leave a Reply

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

ALL COMMENTS

  1. &quot;We are proposing to move the consultation area from G-28
    to the adjacent area which is currently the National Archives Library, G-30.&quot;

    So what happens to the library access and the library materials?
    They have a lot of DC specific material there, such as city directories, etc.
    Also a lot of reference books for genealogy. They also had public access
    computers with the option to print too. Sounds like they are trying to
    streamline limited resources. Finite space and infinite needs.

  2. I am just reading the article and comments about the coming changes to the NARA research facilities. I wish to comment about my recent trip to NARA for genealogy research. It was my first trip. We researched Oct 13 &amp; 14 at the Wash.DC site. My plan was to read several Civil War pension files. I was prepared for what I needed to do. In my opinion, they are trying to discourage genealogy researchers. We could enter the building at 9 am. I expected high security going into the building, which we had, and then followed two more checkpoints before having to sit down at a computer program to review their rules and regulations, then obtaining a picture id needed for gaining entry into a reading room. A researcher cannot request records ahead of time, so you fill out a form to be picked up by 10 am and supposed to be delivered at 11 am in a reading room. So one cannot start reading any documents until after 11 am. By this time, half the day is gone. You are required to use a printer card purchased ahead of time. Your papers are checked going into and out of the reading room. Most of the desk work areas in the reading room are taken up by people doing fulltime jobs there, such as historians. Short term visitors must search for a work area. Copy printers are few. I did not get much done there in two days. I saw one volunteer consultant on duty, and she was most helpful. She was the best thing that happened in those two days, and she was a volunteer.
https://www.familytreemagazine.com/articles/genealogy_research_strategies/libraries-archives/nara-explains-proposed-research-room-changes/
www.familytreemagazine.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2018-17
105873
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:LZIYT7HLG4MAD6KVVKDBJPVRASGSVJAH
<urn:uuid:1844a392-6ac1-47c5-b52e-f289175e7a23>
2018-04-23T03:38:29Z
52.84.128.2
text/html
sha1:OP3XF4U3ZMDUJRWOODH33M6JHFRXUTVT
<urn:uuid:b9f5ecf0-5f5b-41e3-97c4-8fe9ea6a133a>
https://www.familytreemagazine.com/articles/genealogy_research_strategies/libraries-archives/nara-explains-proposed-research-room-changes/
length
response
<urn:uuid:f1b6b05f-bb47-43b4-97d2-c9239664d210>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-228-146-195.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-17
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for April 2018
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf