National Archives (NARA)
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I research all types of media at the
National Archives in both their NARA II, College Park, Maryland
facility and in their main building in Washington, DC. The
National
Archives contains historical records in the form of
various media. Obtaining these records is an art because each
governmental agency has its own culture and often more than one
record management system. Before I start work, unless I know
beforehand exactly where a given record is to be found, I
consult the NARA website and do a search. Next I usually talk
with a Reference Archivist, who is essentially an expert
employed by the National Archives on certain record groups. We
then often consult a Finding Aid (a book detailing locations of
references and shortcuts) that usually helps to narrow down the
search. If one is lucky the responsive record can be identified
in a particular folder and ordered. On other occasions,
potentially responsive records are clustered throughout dozens
of boxes containing several cubic feet of records. It may take as little as thirty minutes
after an order for some textual records to be "pulled" or it may
take up to two hours. Some collections, such as microfilms and
video recordings can be simply located via the NARA website and
found on a shelf. My
output - the
product I produce - depends on the media the client is
interested in. Please click on the type of media that you would
like researched:
Textual Records (documents)
- Cables, memos, letters and other written records. All of these
are royalty-free public records.
Still photographs -
Prints, negatives and transparencies. NARA archives both
royalty-free collections as well as copyrighted ones.
Audio recordings -
Thousands of royalty-free historical recordings.
Motion picture films -
Old movies and documentaries in various formats, with and
without sound. Many of these are royalty-free.
Microfilms - The
National Archives has an extensive microfilm collection of
documents that are usually unavailable for perusal as hard
copies. These are entirely royalty-free public documents. |