The Office of the Historian is responsible, under law, for the preparation and publication of the official historical documentary record of U.S. foreign policy in the Foreign Relations of the United States series. It researches and writes historical studies on aspects of U.S. diplomacy for use by policymakers in the Department and in other agencies, as well for public information. The Office also makes recommendations to other Bureaus regarding the identification, maintenance, and long-term preservation of important historical diplomatic records. Its outreach activities include educational videos for middle school and high school students, scholarly conferences, counseling private scholars and journalists on historical research issues, and responding to government and public inquiries on diplomatic history questions.

In keeping with the Open Government Directive's principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration as the cornerstone of an open government, the Office of the Historian has begun preparing many of its publications in a raw data form that can be published through data.gov. This page serves as a gateway for Office activities related to the Open Government Directive. (See also the Open Government Initiative page on the Department of State's website.)

The Office of the Historian's current submissions to data.gov are as follows:

1. Bibliographical Metadata of the Foreign Relations of the United States Series: This dataset is the raw bibliographical metadata for the nearly 500 volumes in the Foreign Relations of the United States series published since 1861. Each record in the dataset contains a volume's title, year of publication, years covered by the volume, summary, and links to sources for these volumes online or in print, among other metadata items.
2. Latest Volumes of Foreign Relations of the United States: This dataset is a feed for the latest ten volumes in the Foreign Relations of the United States series. Each record in the dataset contains a volume's title, year of publication, summary, and link to the online volumes. The feed will be updated when current volumes are edited or new volumes are published.