Imagine that you want to find electronic records related to a particular geographic location in a very large collection (40 TB and about 70 million files) of archival electronic records. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could pick up an iPad, have a map pop up on the screen, run your finger over the area [...]

Many of us have met long-time computer types who began working with computers long before PCs began appearing in the late 1970s. We recently interviewed a fascinating man who celebrates 50 years of working with computers. He loves explaining how computers moved from being complex, monstrous beasts run by certain “intelligentsia” into practical, analytical tools for everyday people; to how computers today help us communicate and work with each other, within different, newer social frameworks.

His career led him to some fascinating developments in computer science, including early contributions to the beginnings of the Internet, where he now sits at the helm of a strategic team that is braving the most challenging tasks of dealing with Government information in the clouds.

Dr. George O. Strawn is not just another computer/IT official who rose from the ranks – he is one of the most important thought leaders within Federal Government IT circles today. Plus, he loves the National Archives, because he says, “we bring to the table some of the toughest IT problems for all of the federal government that need to be solved in our time.”

Read the first in our series of Applied Research interviews called “At the top of our List: Thought Leaders You Should Know”

The National Archives just joined iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store giving users public access to thousands of free lectures, videos, books and podcasts from learning institutions all over the world.  If you already have iTunes on your iPhone, iPad, iPod, or computer, you can search for “National Archives” on iTunes U to [...]

Founded in 1936, the Society of American Archivists (SAA) celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. During the week of August 22, almost 1,800 archives professionals from all over the globe gathered in Chicago, Illinois for SAA’s annual meeting and anniversary celebration. Today’s blog features my introductory remarks for SAA session #701 that I chaired, “New Perspectives for the 1940 Census” providing a quick history of innovative technologies used for processing and accessing census data.

The following is a guest post by Kate Murray, Digitization Process Development Specialist at the National Archives.   Recently I had what I can only describe as a Eureka moment. I was attending an informal presentation by Hans Westerhoff describing the Images for the Future project in the Netherlands. He said one of the most [...]

Last week, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) held its Spring meeting in Alexandria, VA (May 5-7, 2011). If you missed the conference, today’s Tech Tuesday post is a summary of two events related to MARAC Session S5, “New Tools to Address Electronic Records Challenges.”

On April 28th the United States Navy and its support contractor, IBM, hosted an Educational Summit featuring educators from colleges and universities in WV, MD, and PA at the Navy’s Allegany Ballistics Laboratory (ABL) at Rocket Center, WV. Read about the Summit that included a visit to NARA’s Applied Research Laboratory at ABL, where college students (hired by IBM) collaborate with NARA on advanced IT research projects.

On April 13-14, Fynnette Eaton (NHA) and Kevin Devorsey (NWM) participated in a stakeholders meeting of the Unified Digital Format Registry (UDFR), held at the Library of Congress, along with 22 cultural memory institutions concerned with digital preservation. UDFR aims to pool the expertise of these archival communities to document characteristics that can be used to identify file formats, and then to document the information in an authoritative knowledge base.

In every instance over these years NARA has collaborated with agencies with much larger research budgets in funding research projects. NARA has often contributed “pennies on the dollar” to such projects.

Being a journalist in this digital and new media age presents challenges and frustrations of tracking down and accessing Federal, State, and Local government information needed to produce responsible and accurate news products. Read today’s blog for an invitation to a free conference co-sponsored by NARA and Duke University on April 12, focusing on ways that journalists and researchers may better discover, access, and use digital government information.