This post was written by Ryan Butler, a student intern with the Social Media Team at the National Archives. “Photograph of fireworks going off in the night sky by the Washington Monument, during ceremonies celebrating the 175th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence., 07/04/1951.” ARC ID 200339   Summer is upon us and Americans across the nation are [...]

The following post is by guest bloggers Rebecca Warlow, Description and Digitization Supervisor, and Ann Cummings, Supervisory Archivist for Textual Records. At the DC-Area Researchers Forum in November we announced that some records would be moving from the National Archives at College Park to the National Archives at St. Louis in 2012.  The time has [...]

Today’s post comes from National Archives at Kansas City staff members, Archivist Elizabeth Burnes and Exhibit Specialist Dee Harris. Photograph, Improvement Missouri River in Vicinity of Glasgow, MO, August 1881. RG 77, Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, Omaha District.  (National Archives at Kansas City) The National Archives at Kansas City welcomed [...]

We know that you must be wondering when the dust will settle in the Archives I research center. So far, the classroom, finding aids room, and microfilm research room have been reconfigured. The cork floor and the new wood paneling are beautiful. The floor in the research commons (lobby) remains a work in progress. When [...]

“The following program is brought to you in living color by CBS.”  Wait.  That’s not right.  But it might have been if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had its way back in 1950.  The variation of the long-used advertising slogan by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), first uttered in 1957, may not have been conceived [...]

On Friday, the National Archives released the updated Open Government Plan that will guide our efforts in transparency, participation, and collaboration for 2012-2014. Over the past two years, we’ve implemented most of the 70 tasks we set out to accomplish in our 2010 Open Government Plan, including major initiatives in records management, declassification, and FOIA, [...]

The National Mall is just days away from an influx of thousands of Girl Scouts for Girl Scouts Rock the Mall:  100th Anniversary Sing-Along.  I hope they shipped in enough Thin Mints for the party! The National Archives has some great events planned coinciding with the Girl Scouts’ centennial celebration – including exhibits, a film, [...]

Researchers are invited to read the minutes of the Researcher Forum meeting on May 18, 2012, posted to the DC-area Researcher Forum web page. The main feature of the meeting was a discussion with NARA’s digitization partners: Sabrina Petersen from Ancestry.com; Aaron Spencer from Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com); and John de Jong from FamilySearch.org. Rebecca Warlow [...]

Have you signed up yet to index the 1940 census?  Volunteers have indexed just over 70 million names in the census.   Your help is needed to finish indexing the millions of names that still remain. How can you help? Join the 1940 Census Community Indexing Project at www.the1940census.com. To get started you will need to [...]