2012-2014
OPEN GOVERNMENT
PLAN
National Archives and Records
Administration
1
MESSAGE FROM THE ARCHIVIST
Open government is embedded in the mission of the National Archives and Records
Administration. Our work rests on the belief that citizens have the right to see, examine, and
learn from the records that document the actions of their Government. Records
management is the backbone of a transparent and accountable government.
Over the past two years, we followed the ambitious path we set in our first Open Government
Plan, implementing almost 70 tasks to improve open government. Over the next two years,
we will continue to improve transparency, participation, and collaboration, while embracing
innovation and developing best practices.
We are creating a new culture based on common values and restructuring the agency to better serve the American people. We
are transforming the agency to meet President Obama’s call for a reorganization of government to give the people “a
government that’s more competent and more efficient.” We are creating the critical conditions conducive for employee
engagement. We are launching an internal collaboration network to enable staff to develop communities of practice that cut
across the organization, find experts and advice more efficiently, and share news and knowledge with our staff community.
On January 21, 2009, President Barack Obama said, “Our commitment to openness means more than simply informing the
American people about how decisions are made. It means recognizing that Government does not have all the answers, and
that public officials need to draw on what citizens know.” Knowing we do not have all the answers, we are creating
opportunities for citizens to provide substantive contributions, including tags, transcripts, and images. We launched the
Citizen Archivist Dashboard and an online transcription tool, which saw almost 1,000 pages transcribed in the first two weeks.
We welcomed a Wikipedian-in-Residence and continue to collaborate on projects, scan-a-thons, and to contribute high-
resolution digital images to the Wikimedia Commons. Our work with Wikipedia is changing the way we think about our
work.
We are creating an innovative culture that utilizes new and emerging technologies. We are improving online access to our
records and we will revise our strategy to digitize records to provide the online access you expect. We will move Archives.gov
to a content management system and to the cloud. We will engage the community of developers who are interested in
working with government information.
I am proud to say that more than ever before we are seen as a leader in the Federal Government for our active use of social
media to engage the public. Our social media strategy will guide our efforts to reach our internal staff, the government
community, and researchers and citizen archivists. We are improving how we communicate with the public through clear,
concise, and plain writing.
We will continue to streamline declassification, manage electronic records, and improve our compliance with the Freedom of
Information Act. We will continue our modernization plans for the Federal Register to expand access to regulatory data and
other public information. We will meet the requirements of the Presidential Memorandum on Managing Government
Records, a task that will be transformative for records management across the Federal Government. We will issue a directive
to outline a 21st century framework for managing government records to improve performance and promote openness and
accountability.
Our Open Government Plan for 2012-2014 is an ambitious starting point for the next two years. We will also seek to
implement related initiatives that strengthen open government, like the new Digital Government Strategy to better serve the
American people using emerging technologies. We are excited about our work ahead and our role in strengthening open
government in our society. Share your suggestions for improvements to this plan and our work in open government on
Twitter @USNatArchives and by email at
David S. Ferriero
Archivist of the United States
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OPEN GOVERNMENT PLAN
National Archives and Records Administration
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary ________________________________________________________________ 3
Section 1: The Approach to Open Government at the National Archives _____________________ 5
Section 2: Strengthen the Culture of Open Government at the National Archives ____________ 6
Subsection 2.1: Sustaining Open Government at the Nationl Archives __________________________________ 6
Subsection 2.2: Employee Engagement _____________________________________________________________
7
Subsection 2.3: Public Engagement ________________________________________________________________
9
Section 3: Flagship Initiative: Innovative Digital Access and Strategies ___________________ 11
Subsection 3.1: The Citizen Archivist Initiative _____________________________________________________ 11
Subsection 3.2: Digitization Strategy for the National Archives _______________________________________
14
Subsection 3.3: Social Media Strategy for the National Archives _______________________________________
15
Subsection 3.4: Innovations in Archives.gov ________________________________________________________
16
Subsection 3.5: Innovations in Online Public Access ________________________________________________
18
Section 4: Strengthen Transparency at the National Archives ____________________________ 20
Subsection 4.1: Developers, Datasets and Proactive Release of Information _____________________________ 20
Subsection 4.2: Plain Writing at the National Archives ______________________________________________
22
Subsection 4.3: Records Management at the National Archives _______________________________________
22
Subsection 4.4: Freedom of Information Act at the National Archives _________________________________
24
Subsection 4.5: Other Transparency Measures at the Natioinal Archives _______________________________
27
Section 5: Provide Leadership and Services to Meet 21st-Century Needs ___________________ 30
Subsection 5.1: Records Management: The Backbone of Open Government _____________________________ 30
Subsection 5.2: Freedom of Information Act Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) _________
33
Subsection 5.3: Electronic Records Archives (ERA) __________________________________________________
33
Subsection 5.4: National Declassification Center (NDC) _____________________________________________
35
Subsection 5.5: Office of the Federal Register (OFR) ________________________________________________
36
Subsection 5.6: National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) ____________________
39
Appendix A: Summary of Comments Received from the Public ___________________________ 42
Appendix B: 2012-2014 Open Government Plan Proposed Actions________________________ 44
Appendix C: Implementation of 2010 Open Government Plan Task List ____________________ 47
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Executive Summary
The approach to open government at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is simple it’s embedded in
our mission. The Open Government Directive and related initiatives provide the National Archives with an opportunity to
take a closer look at how we accomplish our mission. We seek to leverage the principles of transparency, participation, and
collaboration to bring greater innovation, efficiency, and effectiveness to our work.
In two years, we have implemented most of the 70 tasks we set out to accomplish in the 2010 Open Government Plan,
including major open government initiatives in records management, declassification, and FOIA, as well as redesigning
Archives.gov and FederalRegister.gov. Within this document, the National Archives’ Open Government Plan for 2012-2014,
you’ll see how far we’ve come and where we think we are headed.
Strengthen the Culture of Open Government
During the next two years, the National Archives will continue to increase the
values of transparency, participation, and collaboration into the culture of the
agency. The agency is undergoing a transformation and implementing a new
organizational structure. Employee engagement is being improved through a
variety of means, including the creation of an internal collaboration network.
Public engagement continues to increase dramatically through the use of social
media tools.
Flagship Initiative: Innovative Digital Access and Strategies
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) provides
innovative digital access to the records of the Federal Government and
develops strategies that support greater online access to these records. Our
flagship Initiative includes the Citizen Archivist Initiative, which engages the
public in crowdsourcing activities like tagging, transcription, and scanning to
help make the records of the National Archives more accessible online, where
people want them. Additionally, the flagship initiative seeks to update our
digitization strategy to expand our efforts to digitize records. We will continue to leverage the social media strategy to guide
how we utilize social media tools during the next two years. We will move our public website Archives.gov to a cloud
based solution and implement Drupal, an open source content management system. We will continue to improve Online
Public Access by exploring how to display citizen-contributed transcriptions, how to leverage and develop application
program interfaces (APIs), and how to make the records of the National Archives more accessible for possible data mining.
Strengthen Transparency at the National Archives
The National Archives is interested in engaging the community of developers who are interested in utilizing datasets, APIs,
and open source software that we’ve made available. We will continue to make available datasets and proactively release
information. We are also committed to writing new content in plain language so that our customers can use forms and web
pages without getting lost and frustrated.
In Fiscal Year 2012, NARA will establish and begin operating a new Records and Information Management Network consisting
of Information Management Officers in each functional area of the agency supported by one or more Record Custodians.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) understands that the effective implementation of the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) is a critical component of open government. NARA’s staff, at all levels of the agency, is committed to
improved compliance with the statute and the spirit of openness established by existing policy.
Leadership and Services
The long-term success of the Open Government Initiative and the future of the National Archives hinges on the ability of each
Federal agency to effectively manage its records. We will fulfill our role in meeting the requirements of the Presidential
Memorandum on Managing Government Records, by working with OMB and the Associate Attorney General to issue a
Records Management Directive to outline a 21st century framework for managing government records.
The Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) has an important mission to provide services to mediate disputes
between Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requesters and Federal agencies, to review policies and procedures of
administrative agencies under FOIA, to review agency compliance with FOIA, and to recommend policy changes to the
The approach to
open government
at the National
Archives is simple
it’s embedded in
our mission
.
4
Congress and President to improve the administration of FOIA. Through its mediation program, OGIS directly contributes
daily to encouraging public participation and collaboration. Additionally, OGIS is working with the Environmental Protection
Agency and the Department of Commerce to build a multi-agency FOIA Module.
The Electronic Records Archives (ERA) seeks to ensure that electronic records created today remain accessible and verifiable
as authentic records, long after the software and hardware used to produce these records have ceased to exist. ERA today is a
complex information management system that was developed to archive the variety of records that the government currently
creates in electronic format. The continued existence of ERA is crucial to open government because of the role it will provide
in long-term preservation and access to electronic records.
The National Declassification Center (NDC) is strengthening open government by improving coordination and collaboration
between agencies and effectively streamlining the declassification process. It has accelerated the processing of historically
valuable classified records in which more than one agency has an interest and whenever practical, it has prioritized
declassification based on researcher interest and the likelihood of declassification. The NDC is addressing an enormous
backlog of classified records and leading an inter-agency quality review assessment that is eliminating multiple re-reviews.
The Office of the Federal Register continues to be a leader in democratizing government information and open government.
The Office of the Federal Register was established to provide public notice and due process of law by ensuring that legal
issuances could no longer be adopted in secret and arbitrarily enforced against the public. Modernization plans, also referred
to as “Federal Register 2.0,” are an expression of our commitment to open government, and include specific efforts to expand
access to regulatory data and other public information.
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) enables the National Archives to reach beyond those
Federal records under its stewardship to assist in the preservation and publication of collections of records held by state and
local governments, nonprofit organizations, colleges and universities, and other institutions. It carries out this mission
through competitive grants for archives preservation and access projects, by investing in research and development in new
archival methodsparticularly for electronic records, and through public policy leadership. In late June 2012, the National
Archives will be the host for a new web resource, Founders Online, which will provide access to the papers of John Adams,
Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington.
Public Input
We continue to welcome your input and help in shaping the open government initiatives over the next two years. Please visit
www.archives.gov/open to learn more about open government at the National Archives. To provide comments, suggestions,
and feedback on this plan or specific initiatives, please email
[email protected] or visit the NARAtions Blog at
http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/.
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1. The Approach to Open Government at the National Archives
The approach to open government at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is simple it’s what we were
created to do. The mission of the National Archives indicates our important role:
On President Obama’s first day in office, he said, “Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and
effectiveness in Government.” On December 8, 2009, the Open Government Directive was issued, with the goal of creating a
culture of transparency, participation, and collaboration in and among Federal agencies to transform the relationship between
Government and its citizens.
The Open Government Directive and related initiatives provide the National Archives with an opportunity to take a closer
look at how we accomplish our mission. We seek to leverage the principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration
to bring greater innovation, efficiency, and effectiveness to our work.
On April 7, 2010, we met an important requirement of the Open Government Directive by issuing the Open Government Plan
of the National Archives. The plan set out to recognize the importance of open government and provide a path forward for
strengthening the principles of open government in our daily work. In two years, we have completed almost 70 tasks for
implementation of the 2010 Open Government Plan, including major open government initiatives in records management,
declassification, and FOIA, as well as redesigning Archives.gov and FederalRegister.gov. To track our progress on all areas,
please see Appendix C of this plan.
The initial plan, however, marked only a starting point we’ve taken open government even further than we envisioned.
After publication of the plan, we began work on transforming the agency and implementing a new organizational structure.
Foundational to these changes are six pillars, one of which is “An Open NARA.” This work continues and is detailed in Section
2 of this plan. We also began to develop the Citizen Archivist Initiative to elevate the role of public participation and
contributions from crowdsourcing activities and individuals. This exciting work continues to evolve and is detailed in Section
3 of this plan. These two efforts are evolutions of open government efforts that come out of the work of the NARA’s first Open
Government Plan.
Within this document, the National Archives’ Open Government Plan for 2012-2014, you’ll see how far we’ve come and where
we think we are headed. Like our initial plan, we know this plan is an important starting point for innovation over the next
two years. We welcome your input and help in shaping the open government initiatives over the next two years.
Please visit
www.archives.gov/open to learn more about open government at the National Archives. To provide comments,
suggestions, and feedback on this plan or specific initiatives, please email
[email protected] or visit the NARAtions Blog at
http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/.
The National Archives
serves American democracy by safeguarding and preserving the records of
our Government, ensuring that people can discover, use, and learn from this documentary heritage.
We ensure continuing access to the essential documentation of the rights of American citizens and
the actions of their government. We support democracy, promote civic education, and facilitate
historical understanding of our national experience.
Learn more about open government at the
National Archives at:
www.archives.gov/open
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2. Strengthen the Culture of Open Government at the National Archives
Since the launch of the first Open Government Plan in 2010, significant efforts have begun to strengthen the culture of open
government at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The agency is undergoing a transformation and
implementing a new organizational structure. Employee engagement is being improved through a variety of means, including
the creation of an internal collaboration network. Public engagement continues to increase dramatically through the use of
social media tools. During the next two years, the National Archives will continue to increase the values of transparency,
participation, and collaboration into the culture of the agency.
2.1 Sustaining Open Government at the National Archives
More than 75 years ago, the National Archives was created because we as a nation recognized the crucial role records
play in our democracy. The changes we are making will ensure that we uphold our fundamental role in safeguarding,
preserving, and providing access to the records of our Government.
Currently, NARA is transforming in response to the President’s call for a reorganization of government to give the people “a
government that’s more competent and more efficient.” At the National Archives, we are meeting the President’s call to
action. In October 2010, the Archivist’s Task Force on Agency Transformation issued a final report,
A Charter for Change,
which sets out six pillars for how NARA intends to do business in the future:
One NARA: Work as one NARA and not just as component
parts.
Out in Front: Embrace the primacy of electronic information in
all facets of our work and position NARA to lead accordingly.
An Agency of Leaders: Foster a culture of leadership, not just as
a position but as the way we all conduct our work.
A Great Place to Work: Transform NARA into a great place to
work that trusts and empowers all of our people, the agency’s
most vital resource.
A Customer-Focused Organization: Create structures and
processes to allow our staff to more effectively meet the needs of
our customers.
An Open NARA: Open our organizational boundaries to learn
from others.
In January 2011, the Transformation Launch Team issued a final report,
Charting the Course, which is our plan for reinventing the National
Archives to meet the demands we face in the digital age.
We’re creating a new culture based on common values at the National
Archives. We’re restructuring the agency to better serve the American
people and the Federal Government. And we are living the principles of open government transparency, participation, and
collaboration.
The chart below represents our new structure of the National Archives. The Archivist of the United States has stated, “this is
not a ‘rearrangement of the deck chairs,’ but a bold new way of positioning ourselves to face the future.” To learn more about
specifics changes to the organizational structure, please read the report,
Charting the Course.
culture based on
common values at the
National Archives.
We’re restructuring
the agency to better
serve the American
people and the Federal
Government.
7
New organizational chart for the National Archives
Next, the National Archives will revisit the strategic planning process and work to align NARA’s Strategic Plan with the
transformation. The current strategic goals of the National Archives are:
One: As the nation’s record keeper, we will ensure the continuity and effective operation of Federal programs by
expanding our leadership and services in managing the Government's records.
Two: We will preserve and process records to ensure access by the public as soon as legally possible.
Three: We will address the challenges of electronic records in Government to ensure success in fulfilling NARA's
mission in the digital era.
Four: We will provide prompt, easy, and secure access to our holdings anywhere, anytime.
Five: We will increase access to our records in ways that further civic literacy in America through our museum, public
outreach, and educational programs.
Six: We will equip NARA to meet the changing needs of our customers.
These six goals enable the National Archives to fulfill its mission to "serve American democracy by safeguarding and
preserving the records of our Government, ensuring that the people can discover, use, and learn from this documentary
heritage." Open government is a fundamental part of our business. Transparency, participation, and collaboration are
important approaches to accomplishing our strategic goals. Because of our unique mission, our performance measures are
already tracking our progress related to open government.
Additional information about specific strategies for accomplishing these goals and performance measures are found in
Preserving the Past to Protect the Future, the Strategic Plan of the National Archives and Records Administration available at
http://www.archives.gov/about/plans-reports/strategic-plan/.
2.2 Employee Engagement
Openness, innovation, and collaboration are hallmarks of an engaged workforce. The National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA) is committed to developing systems and structures that stimulate innovation and support employee
engagement at all levels of the agency.
For NARA, engaging employees means developing and maintaining a work environment and culture that stimulates all
employees to give their best efforts to achieve organizational success. The critical conditions conducive for employee
8
engagement include effective leadership, work that provides meaning to employees, and the opportunity for employees to
learn and grow on the job.
NARA has already taken several important steps to increase employee engagement:
Established new offices as a result of NARA’s transformation and reorganizationmost notably, a Human Capital
Office and a Strategy and Communications Office. Leaders of these offices are on the Executive Leadership Team and
report directly to the Archivist of the United States.
Opened lines of communication in consultation with our union between staff and management, including:
o regular all-hands and supervisory forums,
o online discussion boards and blogs, and
o launch of an internal collaboration network.
Established a Diversity and Inclusion Office to lead efforts in this important area.
Implemented mandatory performance standards for all managers and supervisors that hold managers accountable for
engaging employees and fostering diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
NARA’s ongoing efforts to improve employee engagement include:
Hiring additional staff in the Human Capital Office to lead targeted initiatives to increase employee satisfaction and
engagement.
Revamping leadership development curriculum to emphasize importance of employee engagement.
Revamping the Individual Development Planning process to ensure training is mapped to needed competencies and
career goals.
Preparing to launch an agency-wide mentoring program open to all staff in all locations.
Identifying tools with voting capability to capture staff ideas for improvements across the agency.
Internal Collaboration Network
In our first Open Government plan, the National Archives outlined goals to improve employee engagement and use social
media tools to build community among staff. Key to this initiative has been our project to launch an internal collaboration
network (ICN) for all Archives staff. This integrated suite of
communication and project management tools would enable staff to
develop communities of practice that cut across the organization, find
experts and advice more efficiently, and share news and knowledge with
the staff community.
In 2010 two staff members studied the implementation of social enterprise
sites and knowledge sharing networks at other Federal agencies, including
the Department of State, Department of Defense, National Aeronautics
and Space Administration, General Services Administration, and the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They focused on success stories, lessons
learned, advice on technical requirements, and legal and policy concerns.
They also met with stakeholders across our agency and analyzed
challenges and opportunities with potential impact on the success of an
ICN for the National Archives. In 2011, the ICN team focused on
developing business, technical, and security requirements. In late 2011, we
began working with contractors and refined our rollout plan and plan for
evaluating the success of the ICN.
In January 2012, we launched the initial setup of the ICN. In February a team of 300 staff, who agreed to assist with testing and
case studies, began enhancing the content and resources on the ICN. By the end of March 2012, about a quarter of our agency
staff have joined the network and we plan to have all staff on board by the end of the summer.
The types of engagement we observe so far are promising. Staff members at various levels in various offices are discussing
ways to build community and foster collaboration. They are building groups around topics and issues of interest, not only
groups that mirror organizational structure. Feedback from a variety of staff indicate they are amazed at how much they can
Over the next two
years, we will continue
to explore ways to
facilitate greater
collaboration and
knowledge sharing
through the ICN.
9
learn about the agency and their coworkers by having this type of open conversation and information sharing happen in one,
searchable online space.
Over the next two years, we will continue to explore ways to facilitate greater collaboration and knowledge sharing through
the ICN. We will identify and recognize best practices and successful case studies on the network. By training staff and
building their skill sets with online communication and collaboration tools we will strengthen employee engagement and
empower our employees to transform NARA’s culture.
2.3 Public Engagement
Social Media
At the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), social media is increasingly recognized as an important tool for
public engagement and feedback on a variety of topics related to the mission of the agency.
The National Archives currently engages the public on a variety of social media platforms, including blogs, Facebook,
IdeaScale, Twitter, and Tumblr. These sites encourage two-way exchanges of information. The National Archives posts on
timely and relevant topics and receives feedback from the public. Often, individuals will respond to questions posed by the
National Archives, or will ask specific questions related to issues in which they are interested.
Substantive public engagement occurs on NARA blogs through comments from the public and responses from NARA staff.
Vibrant conversations can be seen on the blog of the
Archivist of the United
States, the FOIA Ombudsman, NARAtions, Prologue, Records Express, and
The Text Message.
The National Archives uses a brainstorming tool called IdeaScale to get
feedback from the public on specific challenges facing the agency. In 2010,
the Open Government Idea Forum launched to generate specific ideas to
include in NARA’s first Open Government Plan using the IdeaScale
platform. In 2012, the Open Government Idea Forum relaunched to gather
feedback for the creation of this plan.
In the summer of 2010, the National Archives used IdeaScale to encourage
public voting on a new design for the homepage of Archives.gov. In January
2012, the National Archives used IdeaScale to gather public input in
prioritizing “Know Your Records” presentations to make available online.
From February through April 2012, the National Archives used Ideascale to
generate ideas from the public on developing a 21st-century framework for
managing government records.
On Facebook and Twitter, the National Archives leverages the “short form
nature of these platforms by asking questions and providing links to sites
where more engagement can occur. Additionally, the National Archives answers questions and provides clarification to
members of the public on issues with which they are concerned.
Tumblr is a social media platform that the National Archives is using to generate interest and, often times, specific feedback
on archival records. Although another “short form” tool, Tumblr has proven to be an incredibly easy way for the public to
engage with the records of the National Archives. The “reblog” feature on Tumblr allows the public to easily republish content
from the National Archives on their own Tumblr blogs.
The Citizen Archivist Initiative at the National Archives encourages public engagement with the records of the National
Archives through the Citizen Archivist Dashboard. This type of engagement produces tags, transcripts, articles, and images
that improve the accessibility of National Archives records. To learn more about the Citizen Archivist Initiative see “Flagship
Initiative” in Section 3 of this plan.
More than ever before, the National Archives is seen as a leader in the Federal Government for its active use of social media to
engage the public. For a comprehensive list of NARA’s social media sites, please visit
http://www.archives.gov/social-media/.
More than ever before,
the National Archives is
seen as a leader in the
Federal Government
for its active use of
social media to engage
the public.
10
For additional information about the use of Social Media at the National Archives, please see the “Social Media Strategy” in
Section 3 of this plan, as well as “Informing the Public of our Progress” in Section 4.5 of this plan.
Policymaking Process
NARA’s policymaking process for creating and revising NARA regulations will continue to incorporate online public
engagement through Regulations.gov and RegInfo.gov, which provide information to the public on the status of pending
regulations. Additionally, the National Archives has provided a step-by-step narrative about how it develops or changes
regulations, available at
http://www.archives.gov/about/regulations/process.html
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3. Flagship Initiative: Innovative Digital Access and Strategies
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) provides innovative digital access to the records of the Federal
Government and develops strategies that support greater online access to these records. The Flagship Initiative is made up of
the following initiatives and strategies:
The Citizen Archivist Initiative,
Digitization Strategy for the National Archives,
Social Media Strategy for the National Archives,
Innovations in Archives.gov, and
Innovations in Online Public Access
3.1: The Citizen Archivist Initiative
Shortly after the publication of NARA’s first Open Government Plan in 2010, we sought to create a role for “citizen archivists.”
By elevating the importance of public participation, citizens can now provide substantive contributions (tags, transcripts,
images, etc.) that increase access to the records of the Federal Government.
With over 10 billion pages of paper records alone, there is no shortage of records to digitize or transcribe. The National
Archives has changed the way it traditionally approached providing access to these records by introducing a role for citizen
archivists.
The Citizen Archivist Initiative engages the public in crowdsourcing activities like tagging, transcription, and scanning to help
make the records of the National Archives more accessible online, where people want them. This ongoing work encourages
citizen archivists to make contributions online through activities on the Citizen Archivist Dashboard, like the National
Archives Transcription Pilot Project.
History of the Citizen Archivist Initiative at the National Archives
In April 2010, the Archivist of the United States introduced the concept of “citizen archivist.” He drew parallels to citizen
science projects and sought to re-imagine the agency’s relationship with the public. Recognizing that what researchers learn
from the records could be captured and harnessed, he set out a vision to develop digital tools that would “make adding real
value to the our work intriguing, easy, and fun.”
In May 2010, the Archivist recognized the work of
Jon Deiss, a citizen archivist, and later in a newly
created award, “Outstanding Citizen Archivist.”
In July 2010, the Archivist recognized the
contributions of the International Amateur
Scanning League and joined the group to scan
photographs from the holdings of the National
Archives.
By June 2011, tagging was introduced for the first
time in the National Archives Catalog, along with
the announcement of the selection of the
agency’s first “Wikipedian in Residence” to foster
greater collaboration with the Wikipedian
community. We have held a variety of events,
including scan-a-thons, where individuals have
added digital images of records to the National
Archives Catalog. The National Archives has
shared tens of thousands of high-resolution
digital images on Wikimedia Commons,
essentially “liberating” the content for wider use
and public exposure.
Screen shot of the National Archives Transcription Pilot Project
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In December 2011, the National Archives launched the Citizen Archivist Dashboard, serving as a portal for crowdsourcing
activities. In January 2012, the National Archives launched a transcription project on the Dashboard to crowdsource
transcription of historical handwritten records. Within two weeks, citizen archivists worked on more than 1,000 pages of
handwritten documents, including fugitive slave case files, presidential records, and suffrage petitions.
By introducing the role of the citizen archivist, the National Archives has developed an innovative way to improve access to
the records of the Federal Government. Individual tags, transcripts, and images contributed prove the value of citizen
archivists to the mission of the National Archives.
The National Archives was the first to use the term “citizen archivist” to refer to public participation. Although it draws from
“citizen science,” the term itself has started a larger dialogue about crowdsourcing in government. It has also generated
greater public interest in the work of the National Archives.
Tangible Results
Finding something in the National Archives is often compared to trying to find a needle in a haystack. The public expects to
find exactly what they are looking for online, but only a small fraction of the records from the National Archives are currently
available online. By introducing a role for citizen archivists, the National Archives is recognizing the power of public
participation in solving that problem. Small contributions are immediately put to use helping you find exactly what you are
seeking.
Thousands of pages of transcriptions, tens of thousands of tags, contributed images, and new search results are all tangible
results of the Citizen Archivist Initiative. Additionally, the Initiative has helped the National Archives build significant
relationships with existing online communities like Wikipedia. Groups not previously affiliated with the National Archives
have reached out to get involved in tag-a-thons. Professional researchers have reached out to the National Archives to share
thousands of digital images and metadata they’ve collected over the years to be included in the National Archives Catalog.
One citizen archivist shared a digital copy with the “Citizen Archivist Research” group on Flickr of a compelling 1930
photograph of a Washington, DC alley that had not yet been digitized elsewhere.
Over the next two years, the National Archives will continue to strengthen our relationships with individual citizen archivists
and groups that are interested in providing contributions. We will also explore any new or interesting ways of engaging
citizen archivists, including exploring new tools that help make contributing easy and fun.
Alaska Purchase Treaty Ratification
and crowdsourced transcription of document
from the National Archives Pilot Project
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Cross-Agency Transferability
Other Federal agencies and cultural institutions are looking at how the National Archives has implemented the Citizen
Archivist Initiative and specific tools on the Citizen Archivist Dashboard as inspiration for exploring their own approaches to
crowdsourcing activities. We are exploring how to make the Drupal code we developed for the Transcription Pilot Project
available on a code-sharing site like GitHub.
The Citizen Archivist Initiative is also helping to shift the thinking away from how institutions need to keep their information
contained within their physical and digital “walls” to an approach that recognizes the great benefits from being involved in
larger communities like Wikipedia and Flickr. The Citizen Archivist Initiative shows that the perceived fears of “losing
control” are greatly outweighed by the benefits of putting your content where people want to see it.
The Citizen Archivist Dashboard
The Citizen Archivist Dashboard serves as portal for crowdsourcing activities at the National Archives. The activities include:
tagging, transcribing, editing articles, upload and sharing images, indexing the 1940 Census, and participating in contests.
The Citizen Archivist Dashboard launched on December 23, 2011 to public praise by individuals and institutions. Here’s some
examples feedback:
“Great Project Idea.”
Nice to see NARA picking up further
with the crowdsourcing idea with the
Citizen Archivist Dashboard!”
“Citizen Archivists?! What a great
idea.”
Can’t wait to explore!”
Tagging
Tagging is a way for citizen archivists to help make it easier to find National Archives records online. By adding keywords,
terms, and labels to records, individuals help the next person discover those records. Tagging at the National Archives can be
done in the National Archives Catalog through Online Public Access or through Flickr. The National Archives has developed
tagging “missions” to focus tagging into thematic interests that might appeal to the public. Tagging missions currently
include:
World War II Posters,
Photos of the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington,
Photographs of Lewis Hine,
Records related to lighthouses, and
1970s DOCUMERICA photos.
To learn more about tagging or participate in a tagging mission, visit
http://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/tag/.
Transcription
14
By contributing to transcriptions, citizen archivists help the National Archives make historical documents more accessible.
Transcriptions help in searching for documents as well as in reading and understanding documents. Transcriptions
contributed by citizen archivists help the next person discover and use those
records.
The National Archives launched a Transcription Pilot Project in January 2012
based on Drupal and available at
http://transcribe.archives.gov/. The public is
invited to contribute to transcriptions of historical documents and help make
them more accessible to the public.
The transcription pilot launched with over 300 documents (more than 1,000
pages) ranging from the late 18th century through the 20th century. Included
are letters to a Civil War spy, various acts and laws, presidential records,
suffrage petitions, indictments, and fugitive slave case files.
Each document is categorized as “Beginner,” “Intermediate,” or “Advanced”
based on the level of effort we believe will be needed to transcribe it. In
addition to searching for documents, citizen archivists can browse by difficulty,
year, and the status of transcription (“Not Yet Started,” “Partially
Transcribed,” and “Completed.”). We are also exploring ways to more
effectively crowdsource the review of transcriptions, so that citizen
archivists can easily review completed transcriptions.
Here’s what the public has been saying:
As a professional genealogist, I am forever grateful to those
people who volunteer their time to make documents more
accessible.
The National Archives transcription pilot project looks cleverly
designed for teaching.
The Citizen Archivist Dashboard also features National Archives records
for transcription on Wikisource, the “free library that anyone can improve.”
Over the next two years, the National Archives will explore ways to improve the National Archives
Transcription Pilot Project, as well as transcription on WikiSource. To make suggestions for
improvements, please email openg[email protected]. For more information on transcription, please visit
http://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/transcribe/.
Other Activities on the Citizen Archivist Dashboard
The Citizen Archivist Dashboard also encourages individuals to share their knowledge about topics related to the records of
the National Archives on Our Archives Wiki and on Wikipedia. Citizen Archivists can share their digital copies of National
Archives records on a Flickr group called “Citizen Archivist Research.” We also periodically feature contests to inspire the
public to utilize government records in new and interesting ways. Additionally, the Dashboard features events and videos
from past events, and encourages individuals to get involved in brainstorming sessions for ideas as well as submitting ideas for
new crowdsourcing activities that should be developed. To make suggestions for new activities to feature on the Citizen
Archivist Dashboard, please send your suggestions to
[email protected]. For more information on the Citizen Archivist
Dashboard please visit
http://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/.
3.2: Digitization Strategy for the National Archives
Access to records in the 21
st
century means online access. In order to provide the online access you expect, digital copies of the
records must first be created through a process called “digitization.” With over 10 billion pages of records, we have a long road
to realizing the dream of having all of our records available online.
World War II Poster and
tags contributed by
citizen archivists
15
Almost 75% of our historical documents, videos, and photographs are described in our online catalog, but only a small fraction
of the descriptions actually include digital copies of the record. These means you may find a written entry online for the
records you are looking for, but you can’t actually see these records online yet.
If we want all of our records online, how are we going to get there?
Over the next two years, the National Archives will update our digitization strategy. We will look to innovate so that we can
expand our efforts to digitize records.
Some of the ideas we will consider in revising the digitization strategy include:
Improve our in-house digitization workflow and the technology to support that workflow.
Explore expanding our work with digitization partners.
Explore options for digitizing records as soon as we receive custody of them, which we are calling “Day Forward
Digitization.”
Consider options for developing an integrated, user-friendly records management solution for the federal
government that will allow us to receive all government records in digital form.
Encourage public participation and collaboration in digitizing and describing our records for online access and use.
Send your comments, ideas, and recommendations for improvements to the strategy to
openg[email protected]. For more
information about NARA’s current digitization strategy, as well as information about digitization partnerships, please visit
http://www.archives.gov/digitization/
3.3: Social Media Strategy for the National Archives
One idea generated during the development of NARA’s first Open Government Plan in 2010, was to create a social media
strategy for the agency. The National Archives committed to this task and developed the strategy with input from the public
via the NARAtions Blog. In December 2010, we published our Social Media Strategy at
http://www.archives.gov/social-
media/strategies/.
In addition to posting policies and frequently asked questions, the National Archives is increasing transparency for the public
by publishing monthly statistics of social media activity, and all signed “terms of service” agreements NARA has with third
party sites like, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, etc.
The Social Media Strategy is an important tool for the National Archives, guiding how we leverage social media tools. The
strategy will continue to be the framework for our endeavors over the next two years. We will continue to focus on fostering a
community and building tools for citizen archivists. We will further develop spaces for the records management community
and interested public stakeholders to exchange ideas for improving records management policy. Staff engagement via social
media tools in the ICN, will continue to grow and allow our staff to collaborate and better serve our customers.
To learn more about implementation of social media and Web 2.0 tools, please visit NARA’s Social Media Directory available
at
http://www.archives.gov/social-media/
The following is a portion of NARA’s Social Media Strategy. The full strategy is available at:
http://www.archives.gov/social-
media/strategies/
Social media tools are transforming the National Archives and the way we serve our customers and American citizens. Social
media tools will help us accomplish our mission as the nation's record keeper to preserve government records and make them
16
more accessible to you. Our social media strategy supports the open government goals of transparency, collaboration, and
participation.
Social media is about community and conversations. We focus on engaging with three main communities:
our staff community,
the government community,
and citizen archivists.
Revolutionize Communication and Collaboration within Our Staff Community
We strive to make NARA a great place to work. We will use social media tools to increase information and knowledge sharing
at and across all levels at NARA. We believe openness is one of the keys to unlocking our collective potential. Peer to peer
communications and networking can lead to better collaboration, more efficiency and less friction.
As organic communities of practice emerge and communications tools are put directly in the hands of all staff, we all will have
opportunities to be leaders and to influence the thinking of our internal community. Collaboration networks uncover experts
in unexpected places and surprising solutions to problems. We will foster the spirit of innovation by making NARA a safe
place to discuss and try new things.
Engage with the Government Community
We will lead the way among government agencies in focusing on the government community, including Federal records
managers, declassification stakeholders, and citizens and groups interested in records access.
We will embrace, develop, and invest in new technology to further our mission. By promoting innovation, collaboration and
the smart use of technology, we will do more with less. We will develop our staff's knowledge of that technology. We will
take the initiative and be leaders in the field of electronic records management for social media. We will lead by example and
develop best practices for the capture of social media records created by our own activities and work.
Build and Strengthen Our Relationships with Researchers and Citizen Archivists
We think our researchers are admirable. Your intrepid spirit while following trails of historical clues and tracking down
evidence is astounding, and the fascinating stories you are able to tell by drawing connections between those points of history
inspire us. So many of you have a wealth of expertise that you have gathered over time while researching at NARA and at
other archives and libraries. Your stories and contributions help illuminate the significance of our government's records to
our nation's history.
Many of you are natural sharers, and we hope to foster that impulse and encourage those researchers we call citizen archivists.
By mapping uncharted terrain in the archival landscape, you are creating navigational tools for others -- researchers,
historians, genealogists, educators, students, volunteers, citizen archivists, and archivists -- who come across those records
next and can follow your trail. We hope to create online spaces and platforms where you can make available and collaborate
on these kinds of pathfinder information, sign posts, tags, and tales. All of these components will make the research endeavor
smoother for newcomers and help make the records more discoverable by history lovers who don't know yet about the
National Archives. By engaging in more conversations with you and getting to know you better, we seek to exchange our
insights and thereby improve access to our nation's documentary heritage together.
3.4: Innovations in Archives.gov
As part of our flagship initiative in our 2010 Open Government Plan, we pledged to make our website Archives.gov an
effective and easy tool for our users. Our goals were to:
Streamline Navigation
Improve Access to Holdings
Simplify Content
Update Visual Design
Focus on Customer’s Tasks
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On December 13, 2010 we launched our redesigned web site that was strongly supported by participation from the public and
NARA staff. The redesign was based on reviews of:
Multiple card sorts
Customer questionnaires
Web statistics
Online surveys and customer feedback
Usability testing
Online and in-person voting
We performed card sorts to designated audiences as well as to the public at-large to confirm preferred terminology and site
organization. We performed usability tests throughout the redesign process from wireframes to prototypes to an interactive
site. We held online and in-person voting events to confirm the preferred design of four different concepts. More than 3,000
visitors participated in voting for the preferred design.
Comments received since the redesign was completed have been highly positive especially for the clean look, the labeling,
and the organization of the content:
“Wow, great redesign. Love the clean lines
and calming colors that allow the focus to
be on the amazing content.”
“The redesigned Archives.gov looks
gorgeous and the new top labels are very
good! Congratulations on the good design
and organization!”
The new design is cleaner, features clearer
organization of content and loaded more
quickly on my mobile device.
Survey results show continued satisfaction and improved satisfaction with look & feel, navigation, and online transparency. In
addition to the positive feedback we’ve received from the public, the National
Archives redesigned web site was:
Listed in the Top 5 Government Agency Websites in 2011 GovLoop Social
Network for Government;
Number 7 in the Plain Language Writing Index Visible Thread Ranks
Federal Websites for Plain Language and Transparency; and
Selected as a winner in the Website/Dynamic Media: Public Sector
category ClearMark Awards Center for Plain Language.
Redesigned Archives.gov
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Moving Archives.gov to the Cloud
In support of the Administration’s Cloud First Policy issued in December 2010, NARA is moving our public website
Archives.gov to a cloud based solution. We anticipate that a cloud based solution will be economical as we will start with a
low initial investment and scale up when traffic demands increase. Cloud hosting will allow NARA to increase the availability
of newly released high interest records online such as the Pentagon Papers, the Nixon Grand Jury Testimony and more
recently the 1940 Census. In the past, we have had to contract out or seek alternative solutions when we release records that
might bring a lot of traffic to the web site. Cloud hosting will allow us to increase capacity very quickly and scale back once
the interest has decreased.
Implementing Drupal for Archives.gov
NARA is transforming the way we do business both internally and externally. Another project currently underway for the
Archives.gov website is to implement a content management system (CMS). We have chosen Drupal, an open source CMS
used by many Federal agencies including the White House and the Department of Energy. We chose Drupal because it is one
of the best CMS options in the market and because of the flexibility it offers. Implementing Drupal is likely to increase and
improve the quality of our web content. Content contributors (NARA staff) will no longer need to know HTML to code
content which means more subject matter experts can write content without learning to code or waiting for someone else to
code for them. We will have workflows that will allow for immediate review and approval of revised and new content. The
content can then be published immediately without web staff intervention. Due to the separation of the content, its structure
and its visual design, a change in one of these elements can be done independently of the others. A complete visual re-design
of a whole site can be carried out without touching the site’s content or the structure. This improves the work processes of the
web staff, making it easier to complete a redesign and reorganize content. Our Web Services Team looks forward to
participating in the growing community of Federal Government Drupal users and collaborating on the development and
enhancement of modules to meet our common needs.
3.5: Innovations in Online Public Access
As part of our flagship initiative in our 2010 Open Government Plan, we planned to increase online access and participation
with you by developing streamlined search capabilities for our online holdings that would unlock records from previously
stove-piped systems.
We accomplished that with the launch of the Online Public Access (OPA) system in December 2010. OPA is the online portal
to our records and information about our records at the National Archives. It provides a single, streamlined search across
multiple resources at the Archives, including archival descriptions and authority records from the Archival Research Catalog,
selected electronic records from the Access to Archival Databases system and the Electronic Records Archives, and web pages
from Archives.gov and all of the Presidential Libraries.
In addition, we have provided new features in an effort to enhance the user experience and improve your interaction with the
records online. Users can zoom and pan online holdings in the catalog, which is essential for handwritten documents. You
can also tag records with your own keywords or identifiers, an essential step in increased participation and collaboration with
you.
19
Screenshot of Online Public Access
Online Public Access has received 352,035 total visits since site launch. We continue to receive positive feedback from you
about the new catalog and functionality:
GREAT beginning. THANKS for stepping forward in
today’s environment and bringing America’s history into
the 21st Century. Really appreciate all your efforts.
I’m really enjoying becoming acquainted with OPA, and
I’m glad to see an effort at bringing all the different ways
to search NARA holdings into one interface.
Thanks for trying to make the information at the
Archives more accessible.
I tagged a few pictures and the list about the submission
was great… I think this is awesome!
In the next two years, we will continue to improve the online public access experience, by exploring:
Displaying citizen-contributed transcriptions and metadata,
Evolving the online public access system into a platform,
Developing useful application programming interfaces (APIs), and
Making the records of the National Archives more accessible for possible data mining.
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4. Strengthen Transparency at the National Archives
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will seek to strengthen the principles of open government and
transparency by:
Engaging the developer community, making available datasets and proactively releasing information;
Committing to writing new content in plain language;
Strengthening records management for the agency’s records;
Strengthening the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) at the National Archives;
Maintaining NARA’s Open Government web page, and
Informing the public of our progress.
4.1 Developers, Datasets and Proactive Release of Information
Engaging the Developer Community
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is interested in engaging the community of developers who are
interested in utilizing datasets, application programming interfaces (APIs), and open source software that we’ve made
available. The National Archives will launch a “Developers” webpage at
http://www.archives.gov/developers to centralize
information relevant to the developer community. This new webpage will be modeled off of the webpage dedicated to
developers at the FCC (
http://www.fcc.gov/developers), and include the following resources currently available from the
National Archives:
Datasets and tools available on Data.gov
The Federal Register API
The Flickr API
Software development repositories:
o NARA File Analyzer
o NARA Video Frame Analyzer
o AVI-MetaEdit
o MediaInfo
Additionally, we are interested in sharing a customized Drupal module utilized in the National Archives Transcription Pilot
Project.
The new “Developerswebpage and efforts to engage the developer community will aid our ongoing conversation about the
role of open data, open source, and APIs at the National Archives. These efforts will also support our implementation of the
May 23, 2012 Digital Government Strategy, “Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People,” so that we
can better serve the American people using emerging technologies.
Available and Future Datasets
The National Archives maintains an inventory of all available datasets at
http://www.archives.gov/open/available-
datasets.html and Data.gov, the interagency website that provides public access to datasets and tools generated by Federal
agencies. Although access to "raw" data is not necessarily helpful to all members of the public, it is made available for
developers and researchers, who can download, mashup, and develop useful presentations of the data.
The following datasets are currently available:
Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), 1996-Present
The CFR contains all of the general and permanent regulations of the United States Government, and affects nearly
every aspect of life in the United States. The datasets are divided into 50 titles that represent broad areas subject to
Federal regulation. These datasets are available for download in XML at
http://www.archives.gov/open/dataset-
cfr.html.
21
Federal Register, 2000-Present
The daily Federal Register is the official legal newspaper of the United States Government. The publication
documents regulatory action and policies of Federal agencies that affect the rights and obligations of citizens,
announces grants, benefits, and educational opportunities, and provides a forum for participation in the democratic
process. Each dataset contains about 250 individual issues of the Federal Register. Within each issue is a record of
the agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices issued that day, as well as Executive orders and other presidential
documents. These datasets are available for download in XML at
http://www.archives.gov/open/dataset-fedreg.html.
Archival descriptions from the Archival Research Catalog (ARC)
This dataset provides archival descriptions of the permanent holdings of the federal government in the custody of the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The archival descriptions include information on traditional
paper holdings, electronic records, and artifacts. This dataset is available for download in XML at
http://www.archives.gov/open/dataset-arc.html.
Organizational descriptions from the Archival Research Catalog (ARC)
This dataset contains a highly detailed presentation of the evolution of names and administrative histories of Federal
and non-Federal organizations. Organizational descriptions are used by the National Archives to track the
organization that created records and as a source of access points for indexing archival descriptions.
This dataset is available for download in XML at
http://www.archives.gov/open/dataset-org.html.
United States Government Manual
As the official handbook of the Federal Government, the United States Government Manual provides comprehensive
information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. It also includes information on quasi-
official agencies; international organization in which the United States Participates; and boards, commissions, and
committees. This dataset is available for download in XML at
http://www.archives.gov/open/dataset-
govmanual.html.
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States
The Public Papers of the Presidents series contains Presidential writings, addresses, and remarks issued by the Office
of the Press Secretary. Currently, volumes are published approximately twice a year and each volume covers
approximately a 6-month period. This dataset is available for download in XML at
http://www.archives.gov/open/dataset-presidentpaper.html.
The following datasets will be made available:
Archival Research Catalog (ARC) Performance Measures
This data represents the percentage of holdings described in ARC, including traditional holdings, artifacts, and
electronic holdings. This dataset will utilize the next generation Data.gov display to provide visualization capabilities
beyond bulk download.
Executive Orders
Executive orders (E.O.) are official documents, numbered consecutively, through which the President of the United
States manages the operations of the Federal Government. This material includes E.O. title, URL, and editorial notes
(amendments, revocations, corrections, and cross references), beginning with the William J. Clinton administration.
This dataset will be available for download in CSV.
Proactive Release of Information
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) also seeks to proactively release operational records to increase
the level of transparency the public has into the working of the agency. NARA has made available online both the bi-weekly
calendars of the Archivist of the United States and agencies’ records control schedules.
Additionally, operational records can be found on NARA’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room
available at
http://www.archives.gov/foia/electronic-reading-room.html. This page is updated to include information
routinely available to the public as well as frequently requested under the Freedom of Information Act. For more information
about the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act at the National Archives please see section 4.4 of this plan.
22
Archivist’s Calendar
The Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero’s bi-weekly calendar is published to promote transparency and open
government at the National Archives. You can expect to find major calendar items by date, including attendees and their
affiliation. Bi-weekly calendars are available starting December 27, 2010 through the present on the Blog of the Archivist of
the United States at
http://blogs.archives.gov/aotus/?page_id=2175.
Records Schedules
In 2010, NARA began to make records schedules available online through the Records Control Schedule repository available at
http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/rcs/. The repository provides access to scanned versions of records schedules or
Standard Form 115, Request for Disposition Authority, which have been developed by Federal agencies and approved by the
Archivist of the United States. The repository includes images of all post-1973, unclassified records schedules. Also included
are records schedules that have been closed without further action, or withdrawn, and are not approved by the Archivist of the
United States. Newly approved records schedules are published weekly.
4.2 Plain Writing at the National Archives
President Obama signed the Plain Writing Act on October 13, 2011. The act requires Federal agencies to write “clear
Government communication that the public can understand and use.” The Plain Writing Act of 2010 calls for writing that is
clear, concise, well-organized, and consistent with other best practices appropriate to the subject or field and intended
audience. Such writing avoids jargon, redundancy, ambiguity, and obscurity.
At the National Archives, the Archivist established the Plain Writing Working Group to help NARA staff use plain language in
their communications with the public. Although plain writing is certainly not a new concept, at the National Archives we
know that we need to be clear and understandable so that our customers can use forms and web pages without getting lost
and frustrated.
The Plain Writing Working Group has:
Trained 60 NARA staff in plain language;
Developed an internal plain writing web page that provides resources and training for NARA staff on plain language;
Developed an external plain writing web page that provides our implementation plan for plain language and solicits
comments from the public on NARA's communications;
Posted several internal blog posts on plain writing for NARA staff; and
Reviewed the National Personnel Records Center Survey of Customer Satisfaction and will use this survey as a
customer feedback tool for plain language.
Additionally, the Plain Writing Working Group is:
Developing an online 'introductory plain language' course for all employees;
Reviewing documents that military veterans read when requesting records from NARA;
Updating the agency's Style Guide to include plain writing techniques, guidelines, and examples; and
Writing newsletter articles on plain language techniques training that will be provided to NARA writers and editors.
To learn more about plain writing at NARA visit
http://www.archives.gov/open/plain-writing/.
4.3 Records Management at the National Archives
As part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) transformation and reorganization in Fiscal Year 2011,
NARA reassigned the agency records management program to the Office of the Chief Operating Officer. This move
recognized NARA’s need to create a model program to serve as a leader for the Federal Government. NARA’s Corporate
Records Management program is led by a GS-15 Certified Records Manager and includes six professional staff.
In Fiscal Year 2012, NARA will establish and begin operating a new Records and Information Management Network including
more than 150 Information Management Officers covering each functional area of the agency. One or more Records
23
Custodians supports each Information Management Officer. The
Information Management Officers and Records Custodians have
clearly stated recordkeeping responsibilities and competencies.
NARA expects each Information Management Officer and
Records Custodian to devote approximately 10 percent of their
time to managing records. The Corporate Records Management
staff will provide guidance, training, leadership, and tools to
support the Records and Information Management Network.
During the second half of Fiscal Year 2012 and into Fiscal Year
2013, Corporate Records Management and the Records and
Information Management Network will initiate a focused,
ongoing effort to dramatically improve NARA’s own records
management program. We will:
Assess and benchmark the current recordkeeping
situation,
Train each Information Management Officer and Records
Custodian,
Produce and maintain an inventory of all records and
information
Create detailed file plans for each functional area,
Develop new big bucketrecords retention and disposal
schedules, and
Use records schedules to periodically move inactive records to low cost storage, and properly dispose of obsolete
records.
We plan to use information technology tools to bolster collaboration and communications. We believe that new internal
controls in combination with these technologies can help modernize our program and maximize its effectiveness.
Internal Controls
The Information Management Officers and Records Custodians will use web-based tools to execute records management
processes such as populating and maintaining a central records inventory database, populating forms and checklists for
analyzing record value, etc.
Corporate Records Management will establish a portal where all NARA staff can view progress and performance at-a-glance
for each functional area.
Technology
We will use NARA’s new Internal Collaboration Network, SharePoint, NARA’s intranet, and other tools to support work of the
Information Management Officers and Records Custodians.
Plan for Addressing Specific Recordkeeping Challenges
Email Management
In 2011, Corporate Records Management conducted a pilot project known as the Email Bridge. While capturing Senior
Executives’ daily email, we tested various scenarios to gather requirements for future processes to capture and maintain
permanently valuable Senior Executives’ email. The participants included NARA Senior Executives who tested different
scenarios including:
Reviewing and deleting non-record email and filing record email in a records management application,
Deleting non-record email and the allowing the remaining email to be auto-filed as records,
Watching as all email was auto-filed without the opportunity for deletion, and
Using search to help clean up email before it was either automatically or manually filed.
The scenarios tested indicated that most Senior Executives do not have the time to clean up their email, and many non-
records were captured.
The Corporate Records
Management staff will
provide guidance, training,
leadership, and tools to
support the Records and
Information Management
network in a focused,
ongoing effort to
dramatically improve records
management in the agency.
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In 2012, Corporate Records Management will develop and test automated email cleanup rules, and guide NARA staff in using
technology to clean up and manage email.
Social Media
In 2011, Corporate Records Management conducted an inventory and survey of NARA’s internal social media sites. We
developed a white paper with big bucketscheduling recommendations. In 2012, we have interviewed all owners of NARA’s
internal wikis and blogs. We will begin testing capture tools such as PDF writers and harvesters, and we will test our big
bucketscheduling recommendations. We will include all Social Media sites in our records inventory and work with
Information Management Officers and Records Custodians to manage social media records as we manage all other media and
formats at NARA.
Deploying Cloud Based Services or Storage Solutions
NARA’s Corporate Records Management provides recordkeeping requirements for cloud-based systems. We have been
working closely with NARA product-owners to ensure adequate recordkeeping for cloud-based applications.
Cleaning Up Shared Drives
Throughout Fiscal Year 2011, Corporate Records Management led an agency-wide shared drive cleanup project that helped
inform NARA's Bulletin 2012-02, Guidance on Managing Content on Shared Drives
http://www.archives.gov/records-
mgmt/bulletins/2012/2012-02.html. Corporate Records Management will implement the guidance in this bulletin by
implementing a repository for managing electronic records on our network, implement policies for maintaining the clean
shared drives, and experimenting with auto-categorization technologies to expand from enterprise cleanup to enterprise
content management.
4.4 Freedom of Information Act at the National Archives
(http://www.archives.gov/foia)
At the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), we understand that the effective implementation of the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a critical component of open government. NARA’s staff, at all levels of the agency, is
committed to improved compliance with the statute and the spirit of openness established by existing policy. Our primary
goals are to expand our ability to act on FOIA requests in a timely manner, actively work to decrease our backlog of pending
requests, find workable solutions to facilitate the prompt review of classified records by agencies that have interests in the
records, work with the Office of Government Information Services to mediate or resolve issues that prevent NARA’s ability to
fully process a pending request, and proactively disclose information that is of interest to FOIA requesters and the research
community at large.
NARA has been responding to public access requests for government information since long before the FOIA was enacted.
NARA accepts FOIA requests for the operational records that NARA creates while conducting government business as well as
the accessioned archival records that NARA receives and maintains from all Executive branch agencies as part of the National
Archives of the United States. NARA also accepts FOIA requests for Presidential and Vice Presidential records subject to the
Presidential Records Act. Most, but not all, of our holdings are Executive branch agency Federal records and Presidential
records that are now subject to the FOIA. Using the principles and processes embodied in FOIA, NARA makes available to the
public these archival holdings. In the vast majority of situations, FOIA requests are not necessary to access these records.
Additionally, NARA discloses on our website descriptive information concerning our holdings, publicly available electronic
records, and digital images of open materials.
When a FOIA request is submitted for access to archival records, in the vast majority of situations, the records being
requested have already been reviewed by an archivist when they were received by NARA. During this initial processing stage,
archivists determine whether records can be immediately made available to the public, or whether by withholding whole
pages or folders from a box of records, the majority of the records in the a box may be made available. If an archivist has
reviewed a box and determined the records remain so sensitive that a line by line review of the information is required prior to
release, then a researcher seeking such a review must make a FOIA request.
Archival Records
NARA’s recent reorganization has had an impact on which offices receive FOIA requests for access to archival records. We
now have a single Office of Research Services that oversees the archival holdings from federal agencies in Washington, DC and
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all of our regional archives. Presidential libraries continue to process FOIA requests separately, under the auspices of the
Office of Legislative Archives, Presidential Libraries and Museum Services. Initial requests for access to records continue to be
tracked and processed by the components of NARA having custody of the records. This process allows requests to be handled
by the individuals who are most familiar with the records and who are best suited to talk with FOIA requesters about those
records.
The Office of Research Services leads the way in making permanent federal records from government agencies available to
the public. This office is responsible for planning, directing, and coordinating a comprehensive program to review materials in
the National Archives Building in downtown Washington, the National Archives at College Park, MD and at Regional Archives
throughout the country. The Office of Research Services processes FOIA requests for some of NARA’s most sensitive historical
records. This office also participates in interagency programs to develop government-wide regulations for the declassification
of security classified materials. In addition, the office conducts numerous “special reviews” to facilitate research of restricted
materials for visiting researchers.
In Fiscal Year 2011, the Washington office of the Office of Research Services received 946 FOIA requests and completed
processing of 419. Of those there was an on-time completion rate of 33 percent. The regional offices in Research Services
received 360 FOIA requests, while the National Declassification Center alone received 408. For more information about the
NDC, see Section 5.4 of this plan.
Since 1999, when NARA started to measure FOIA performance, Research Services has answered an average of 44 percent of the
FOIA requests it receives within the statutory 20 working days. The completion rate fluctuates with the volume of incoming
FOIA requests, including the number of simple FOIA requests that can be quickly moved through the processing queue,
compared to the number of complex requests that take much longer to process (those requiring additional review time based
on the large number of responsive records or when addressing classification or other issues). Moreover, as described in more
detail below, NARA’s control over many of these requests is limited because we must refer requests for classified records to the
originating agencies for declassification review.
Among NARA’s regional archives is the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, MO, which maintains both
the civilian and military personnel records for the entire Federal Government. Official Military Personnel Files (OMPFs)
comprise the single most requested group of records at NARA. In Fiscal Year 2011, the NPRC received 15,902 FOIA requests
and processed 15,712. Of those, 15,078 were completed within 20 working days, a completion rate of 94.8 percent. Some FOIA
requests for military records take considerably longer than the 20 working day standard if the request is for a record that was
destroyed in the 1973 fire at the NPRC and the data must be reconstructed from other sources, or if the record has been
borrowed by another agency.
The Office of Presidential Libraries administers NARA’s nationwide network of Presidential libraries. The Presidential
libraries are not traditional libraries, but rather archival depositories that preserve and make available the records and other
historical materials of presidents since Herbert Hoover. Until the Presidential Records Act of 1978 (PRA) went into effect at
the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s term, materials at the libraries were donated personal property, which are not subject to the
FOIA. (The Nixon historical materials are governed by a special statute, the Presidential Recordings and Materials
Preservation Act, and are also not subject to FOIA.) Each library may also contain a small amount of Executive branch agency
records that are subject to the FOIA.
Presidential records at the Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, William J. Clinton, and George W. Bush Libraries are subject to
the Presidential Records Act, which incorporates the FOIA with several variations. The PRA applies to the official records of
Presidents, Vice Presidents, and their staffs. The PRA, however, restricts all public access to Presidential records for the first
five years after the end of an administration, at which time the public can seek access the records through FOIA. In addition,
for the first 12 years, the PRA allows the President to invoke as many as six specific Presidential restrictive categories, along
with eight of the nine FOIA exemptions to public access, and there is no judicial review of denied requests. After twelve years,
regular FOIA procedures apply, except that the (b)(5) exemption is not available. In addition, the Presidential Records Act
establishes procedures for Congress, courts, the incumbent administration and the former President to obtain special access to
records that remain closed to the public.
Requests for records under the Presidential Records Act are also subject to the requirements of Executive Order 13489 on
“Presidential Records” (issued January 21, 2009). This order, like its two predecessor orders, requires that NARA inform both
the incumbent and former Presidents of NARA’s intent to release any Presidential records in response to a pending FOIA or
any other request for access. This notification gives the incumbent and former Presidents an opportunity to decide whether
or not to invoke Executive privilege over the records. The review period authorized by Executive Order 13489 begins after all
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review decisions, including classification issues, have been resolved by NARA and other agencies, and the reviewed records are
proposed for opening to the public.
During Fiscal Year 2011, Presidential libraries received 230 Presidential Records Act/FOIA new requests and completed 239
(including carry-over from prior years). Of these, 27 were completed within 20 working days, for an on-time completion rate
of 11.7 percent. The libraries’ low on-time rates are attributable to many factors, including compliance with Executive Order
13489, the volume of incoming requests, the size of the library staff, the overwhelmingly large volume of FOIA requests
submitted upon the five-year point that a new library becomes subject to FOIA (the Clinton Library received FOIA requests
requiring us to process 9 million pages within the first week of Clinton Presidential records being subject to FOIA), and the
complex process required for declassification review and consultations with other agencies. The libraries continue to
emphasize the importance of providing an initial response to FOIA requests within 20 working days, providing information
concerning expected processing times. However, with long backlogs at each of the libraries and the increasing numbers of
requests, it is extremely difficult to meet the statutory time limits for FOIA processing.
NARA’s Operational Records
FOIA requests for NARA’s operational records are processed by the Office of General Counsel, the Office of the Federal
Register, and the Office of the Inspector General. NARA performs extremely well with regard to processing FOIA requests for
its operational records within 20 working days. During Fiscal Year 2011, NARA received 269 FOIA requests for access to
operational records. NARA completed processing 260 requests in that same time period, including 221 requests within 20
working days, for an on-time completion rate of 82 percent. Since 1999 NARA has answered, on average, 86 percent of all
FOIA requests received for operational records within 20 working days. When compared to other executive branch agencies
with similar FOIA workloads, NARA does an exceptional job in processing requests within the statutory time limits.
Effective System for Responding to Requests
FOIA requests at all NARA facilities are received via mail, e-mail or fax. Misdirected FOIA requests are routed to the
appropriate office for tracking and processing within 10 working days, as mandated by the OPEN Government Act. As
described below, tracking methodology varies by available technology in the NARA office responsible for processing the
incoming FOIA request.
The Offices of Research Services and Agency Services utilize the Archives Declassification, Review and Redaction System
(ADRRES), which automates case tracking and the process of reviewing and redacting sensitive and classified materials in
response to FOIA and other legal mandates. ADRRES is an automated records repository that allows staff to scan records into
a FOIA case file, conduct electronic redaction, and track the request. The system also contains a search function that
facilitates the production of statistical information concerning FOIA requests used for regulatory and compliance reporting.
NARA also uses an unclassified version of ADRRES, the Unclassified Redactions and Tracking System (URTS). Both systems
have automated the FOIA review process by allowing staff to conduct automated reviews of requested documents. While both
offices have the advantage of automated FOIA processing, the challenge of an ever increasing work load in comparison to
available resources to process incoming requests must still be overcome.
Each presidential library has a database linked to the NARA Performance Management and Reporting System (PMRS) for
tracking statistical information concerning incoming FOIA requests performance and for annual reporting purposes. In
addition, the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton Presidential Libraries have the Presidential Electronic Records Library
(PERL) system, which contains both presidential electronic records and finding aids created by the White House. These
databases include document-level metadata for incoming and outgoing correspondence that was tracked during each
administration by the White House Office of Records Management, which is helpful in finding documents that are responsive
to FOIA requests. Electronic records created during the George W. Bush Administration are stored in NARA’s Electronic
Records Archive and also contain finding aids at the document and/or folder level for millions of textual records created
during the administration. These finding aids will be equally helpful in identifying responsive documents when George W.
Bush Presidential records become subject to FOIA on January 20, 2014.
Each regional facility receives and processes its own FOIA requests. The vast majority of FOIA requests received outside of the
Washington, D.C. area are for Official Military Personnel Files (OMPFs), which are processed by the NPRC in St. Louis.
Accordingly, NARA created a Case Management Reporting System (CMRS), which allows for electronic tracking of all requests
for OMPFs. At the NPRC, all requests pertaining to military veterans are entered into this database and then tracked and
processed. All new cases are received electronically or converted to electronic images upon receipt.
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This system also makes it possible to obtain various kinds of analytical data about FOIA requests. Since the implementation of
the system, FOIA performance has drastically improved. In Fiscal Year 2003, 60 percent of FOIA requests for military records
were completed in 20 working days. By Fiscal Year 2005, the completion rate was 84 percent. As of March 2012, the rate was
91 percent.
To process the relatively small volume of FOIA requests for NARA’s operational records, NARA has a simplified automated
tracking system, using a Microsoft Access database, which allows NARA to maintain control over the FOIA workload and
capture statistical information necessary to comply with annual reporting requirements related to FOIA processing. The
volume of requests and the nature of the information contained in NARA operational records make this the most feasible
method. NARA logs each request it receives and provides a data feed concerning each request to the PMRS, which monitors
the processing of FOIA requests against the goals outlined in the annual performance plan. The Chief FOIA Officer and NARA
office heads use the data in PMRS to monitor processing, assess the backlog, set priorities and determine areas for
improvement in the process. NARA’s current goal is to process 90 percent of FOIA requests within 20 working days. In the
first quarter of Fiscal Year 2012, 100 percent of requests for NARA operational records were processed within the 20 working
days.
FOIA Processing and Backlogs
NARA continues to work toward a reduction of its backlog of pending FOIA requests. NARA’s 2011 Annual FOIA Report shows
that our FOIA backlog grew by 947 requests. Note, however, that NARA received 18,129 requests in Fiscal Year 2011, an increase
of 2,348 requests over the 15,781 requests received in Fiscal Year 2010. Even with the increase in incoming requests, NARA
managed to process 1,609 more requests in Fiscal Year 2011 than in Fiscal Year 2010.
While NARA has made strides to enhance performance on the processing of FOIA requests, we are still faced with significant
challenges. Like many government agencies, NARA faces budgetary and staffing limitations that impede our ability to meet
FOIA goals.
A breakdown of our current work of pending FOIA’s is outlined below by NARA office:
NARA Office
FOIA Backlog as
of 3/9/12
Research Services
3,201
Office of Presidential Libraries
1,522
Agency Services
2,198
Operational Records
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All NARA Offices
6,943
Learn More
Information concerning NARA’s FOIA program can be found on our website at
http://www.archives.gov/foia/. For
information about the Office of Government Information Services, the FOIA Ombudsman, please visit section 5.2 of this plan.
4.5 Other Transparency Measures at the National Archives
Open Government Web Page
The National Archives reports progress and upcoming events related to open government on Archives.gov available at
http://www.archives.gov/open. The page will be refreshed on a continual basis to inform the public of updates, milestones,
events, publications, blog posts and opportunities for public participation. The web page serves as a gateway for open
government activities at the National Archives related to the Freedom of Information Act, records management, digitization,
social media, plain writing, Archives.gov redesign, and all datasets available on Data.gov. All previous versions of NARA’s
Open Government Plan can be found at
http://www.archives.gov/open/open-plan.html.
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NARA’s Open Government Web Page at
Archives.gov/open
Informing the Public of Our Progress
Strengthening transparency at the National Archives requires active communication of our progress to the public. We will
strive to communicate in an efficient and clear way the major milestones and significant actions and business of our agency.
We will make announcements in both traditional ways and through social media to encourage two-way communication with
the public. While social media is an important and highly interactive way to engage the public, we also realize that more
traditional forms of media are sometimes better at reaching members of the public who do not have immediate access to the
Internet. A few examples of actions that will be communicated with the public include:
Significant acquisitions of records
Releases of previously unavailable material
Approved agency-specific disposition authorities and the Government-wide General Records Schedules
Partnerships with outside organizations to increase access to archival material
Changes in research room procedures
Changes in visitor/researcher policies
Temporary closures of records when records are being moved from one facility to another
Changes to fees charged for some services
Announcements of conferences, symposiums, exhibits
Appointments of senior staff
Availability and awards of grant funds
We use a number of means to communicate with the public, from face-to-face meetings to social media. NARA encourages
public feedback through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, e-mail, blogs, and regular mail.
Press releases and on-site press briefings publicize NARA actions and programs through the news media. All press releases are
also posted on Archives.gov so that they are available directly to the public. High-level news is announced on the front page
of Archives.gov.
We will continue to hold public meetings, such as those held on researcher room changes, to facilitate immediate exchange of
ideas. We are also investigating web chat possibilities for communicating with the public.
NARA’s Facebook sites reach the public at large, as well as targeted audiences. On our public and research pages, we will
make announcements about agency-wide actions and developments. Facebook pages maintained by our regional archives and
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Presidential libraries as well as those relating to the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the Federal
Register will maintain their specialized audiences informed of particular developments in their areas.
Through our NARAtions blog (
http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access), we converse with researchers about issues
relating to access to records (both traditional and digital) and the research experience. A Washington, DC, subgroup of
NARAtions reaches those concerned about research rooms in the Washington area.
The Pieces of History blog (
http://blogs.archives.gov/prologue/) is the online extension of Prologue magazine, a traditional
print publication that tells the public about our holdings, staff research in our holdings, and upcoming programs and events.
Through our Records Express blog (
http://blogs.archives.gov/records-express/), we provide the latest information regarding
Government-wide records management activities.
Compliance with Transparency Initiative Guidance
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) publishes the annual E-Government report in compliance with
the E-Government Act of 2002. NARA will continue to prepare the E-Government Act report and make it available publicly at
http://www.archives.gov/about/plans-reports/e-gov/.
Responding to Congressional Requests
The Congressional Affairs Office of the National Archives serves as the principle point of contact with Capitol Hill and can
assist offices with constituent concerns or questions regarding agency policy and procedures. To learn more about the
Congressional Affairs Office please visit
http://www.archives.gov/congress.
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5. Provide Leadership and Services to Meet 21st Century Needs
5. 1 Records Management: The Backbone of Open Government
(http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/)
The backbone of a transparent and accountable government is good records management. To put it simply, the Government
cannot be accountable if it does not preserve and cannot find its records. Across the Government we are falling short in
our records management responsibilities, particularly in regard to the exponential growth in electronic records. The long-
term success of the Open Government Initiative and the future of the National Archives hinges on the ability of each
Federal agency to effectively manage its records. At the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), our records
management approach is grounded in these three principles:
Federal agencies must economically and effectively create and manage records necessary to meet business needs.
Federal records must be kept long enough to protect rights and
assure accountability.
Federal records of archival value must be preserved and made
available for future generations.
Office of the Chief Records Officer
The National Archives has established a Chief Records Officer for the United
States Government. This position leads records management throughout
the Federal Government, with an emphasis on electronic records, and
assesses the effectiveness of Federal records management policies and
programs. In addition, the Chief Records Officer is responsible for:
Issuing Federal records management policy and guidance;
Ongoing liaison with the Office of Management and Budget,
Congress, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council and other
external stakeholders on records management issues; and
Serving as an ombudsman between agencies and the Archivist of
the United States to ensure that NARA and the agencies we serve
meet our statutory mandates and records management
requirements.
In support of these efforts is the staff of the Office of the Chief Records Officer made up of around 100 full-time staff members
located in the Washington, DC, area and around the country. These records and information management professionals
actively work with the Federal records officers in over 250 different Federal agencies across the Federal Government. The
Office of the Chief Records Officer staff members:
Develop electronic records management policy and guidance for Federal agencies;
Provide records management training to Federal records officers, IT professionals, legal counsels, program managers,
and private contractors who provide records management services to Federal agencies;
Conduct studies and analyses of recordkeeping practices in Federal agencies so others can learn best practices and
avoid the costly mistakes of others;
Work with Federal records officers to conduct self-assessments of their agencies’ records management programs,
using the Archivist’s statutory authority to conduct inspections and report findings to the appropriate oversight
committees and the Office of Management and Budget; and
Work with Federal records officers to schedule and appraise the records that each agency creates to ensure adequate
and proper documentation of our Government’s actions.
This statutory authority to grant Federal agencies disposition authority to manage their records is the most important
responsibility of the Archivist of the United States because it determines what records will come to the National Archives for
preservation and access by future generations.
The long-term success
of the Open
Government Initiative
hinges on the ability
of each Federal
agency to effectively
manage its records.
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Records Schedules
During this process, a Request for Disposition Authority, or "records schedule," is completed by the agency and approved by
NARA. The records schedule contains descriptions of records series (a grouping of related records) or systems and disposition
instructions for each. These disposition instructions specify when each series is cut off, when records are eligible to be moved
to off-site storage, when temporary records must be destroyed or deleted and when permanent records are to be transferred to
NARA. In February 2010, NARA unveiled a new portal on its web site that provides scanned images of all post-1973,
unclassified, NARA-approved records schedules. For the first time, these records can be seen on the National Archives Records
Control Schedule web site at
http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/rcs. Newly approved schedules are posted weekly. This
site was created as a way for NARA to respond to requests for greater transparency in records scheduling from some public
interest groups.
Ensuring Open Government Values are Realized
Given that the central values of open government are transparency, participation, and collaboration, and that records
management is the backbone of open government, the central question is:
What is needed to ensure that the open government values are realized and that NARA’s mission is accomplished, at least
with respect to Federal records management?
Heads of agencies and senior leaders across the Federal Government need to understand that the records and information
they and their organizations are creating are national assets that must be effectively managed and secured so that the public
can be assured of the authenticity of the record. Heads of agencies and senior leaders need to be held accountable for
managing these assets. Not only is it required by law in the Federal Records Act; effective records management adequate
and proper documentation of the Federal Government’s activities and transactions is good government and a necessary
condition of an open government. Today, Federal agencies are not doing an effective job managing their records and other
information assets to meet their business needs, to protect rights or assure accountability for the citizen or the Federal
Government itself, or to ensure records that document the national experience are preserved and made available for future
generations in the National Archives.
Developing a 21st-Century Framework for Records Management
On November 28, 2011, President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum on Managing Government Records. This
Memorandum marked the start of an executive branch-wide effort to reform records management policies and practices.
Improving records management will improve performance and promote openness and accountability by better documenting
agency actions and decisions.
This initiative was mentioned in the U.S. National Action Plan. The plan said that:
This Memorandum requires that by July 31, 2012, the Archivist of the United States, in coordination with the Director of OMB
and the Associate Attorney General, issue a Records Management Directive outlining a 21st century framework for managing
government records. In addition to this, we are currently undertaking a review of the relevant statutes, regulations, and
official guidance to identify opportunities for reforms that would facilitate improved Government wide records management
practices, particularly with respect to electronic records. Working with the Office of Management and Budget and the
Department of Justice, we will present to the President the results of this review to facilitate potential updates to the laws,
regulations, and policies governing the management of Federal records.
In support of the Presidential Memorandum, NARA conducted two active calls for participation from the public. NARA
launched an IdeaScale site to solicit input. Records and information professionals, vendors, and the general public provided
ideas for improving the management of Federal records. Ideas were generated in the six categories specified by the President
in the Memorandum:
This initiative will recommend reforms and require reporting on current policies and practices. The
initiative will consider changes to existing laws and ask how technology can be leveraged to improve
records management while making it cost-effective. The initiative will seek a reformed, digital-era,
government wide records management framework that promotes accountability and performance.
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Creating a government-wide framework,
Promoting practices that enable agencies to fulfill missions,
Maintaining accountability through documentation,
Increasing open government and access,
Supporting agency compliance, and
Transitioning from paper to electronic when feasible.
In addition to submitting ideas, users of the site provided comments and voted on ideas submitted by others. The IdeaScale
site ran from March 6 through April 13 2012.
We also hosted an open meeting on March 27, 2012 to solicit public comments in response to the Presidential Memorandum
on Managing Government Records. The Memorandum directs the Archivist of the United States, in coordination with the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to consult with those inside and outside of the government interested in
improving records management and open government. This meeting primarily focused on gathering input from the public
interest community, from the vendor/IT community, and from members of the public at large. Comments and suggestions
received by NARA and the Office of Management and Budget will help inform the Records Management Directive that will be
issued later this year.
Cause for Concern
The National Archives will send to Congress and the Office of Management and Budget a report based on analysis of data from
annual agency self-assessments based on compliance with records management requirements in the Federal Records Act, the
E-Government Act of 2002, and related regulations. The analysis of the three self assessments conducted in 2009-2011 shows
on average 88 percent of reporting agencies have a moderate to high level of risk associated with their records management
programs, particularly electronic records management. These levels of risk in agencies are a great concern. One of the central
ways to begin to deal with this risk is to make the case that records and information are national assets essential for
transparency in an open government, and then hold heads of agencies and senior leaders accountable for their management
and protection.
In addition to the records management self-assessment data, NARA reports annually to Congress and the Office of
Management and Budget on the status of other records management activities for which NARA has oversight responsibility.
These activities include:
Inspecting the records management programs of Federal agencies,
Scheduling and transferring electronic records to NARA, and
Reporting on allegations of unauthorized disposition of Federal records.
NARA documents these activities in the annual Performance and Accountability Report (PAR). To review the data on these
activities for Fiscal Year 2011, please see pp. 89-96 of the PAR at
http://www.archives.gov/about/plans-reports/performance-
accountability/2011/index.html.
Electronic Records Management
NARA will also continue to provide a wide variety of electronic records management guidance and best practices for Federal
agencies in order to assist them in addressing these identified deficiencies. In previous years, we have issued guidance on such
topics as Web 2.0, Cloud Computing, and Managing records on Shared Drives. In addition, we have conducted studies of
agencies' use of Web 2.0 tools and will provide further guidance to Agency Heads regarding the recordkeeping impacts of the
use of these technologies as these technologies evolve. All of the resources that we develop, as well as those best practices that
we identify from around the world are aggregated in our Toolkit for Managing Electronic Records, available at
http://toolkit.archives.gov. This web resource provides hyperlinks to guidance products developed by NARA and other
organizations.
As agency heads and senior leaders are held accountable for managing their records and information, they also must work
with the National Archives, the General Services Administration, and the Office of Management and Budget, as well as with
groups like the CIO Council, the Federal Records Council, and the Federal Web Managers Community, to develop the IT tools
necessary to manage electronic records in cost effective ways. The technical challenges associated with developing the IT
tools for records management are significant; however, these tools do not exist today because heads of agencies and senior
leaders across the Federal Government have not been held accountable in meaningful ways for meeting their Federal records
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and information management obligations. The Federal Government spends over $70 billion annually on information
technology, most if not all of which create or receive Federal records in some form. Developing cost-effective electronic
records management tools that work and then integrating them into agency IT systems is essential to managing this
national asset.
Toward this end, we look forward to building on existing work done by the leading information policy agencies like the Office
of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration as well as formal advisory or policymaking groups like
the CIO Council, the Federal Records Council, and others to increase visibility and raise accountability around the electronic
records management issue. With these other agencies and groups, NARA will take a leadership role finding and developing
the cost effective IT solutions needed to meet the electronic records management challenges found in Federal agencies today.
5.2 Freedom of Information Act - Office of Government Information Services (OGIS)
(www.ogis.archives.gov)
The Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) began operations at the National Archives in September 2009, with a
mission to provide services to mediate disputes between Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requesters and Federal agencies,
to review policies and procedures of administrative agencies under FOIA, to review agency compliance with FOIA, and to
recommend policy changes to the Congress and President to improve the administration of FOIA. Through its mediation
program, OGIS directly contributes daily to encouraging public participation and collaboration.
Among its activities to improve the FOIA process, OGIS is in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
and the Department of Commerce to build a multi-agency “FOIA Module.” The Module is a portal through which the public
will be able to make FOIA requests; it will automate FOIA processing and reporting; and it will store and provide access to
FOIA requests and agency responses in a virtual repository. The partners have been meeting with both agency FOIA
professionals and requesters to refine the portal’s capabilities, with a planned launch date of October 1, 2012.
Additionally, OGIS has helped to organize a group of FOIA and Information Technology (IT) professionals who are sharing
ideas and making plans about new ways to apply existing technology to improve the FOIA process. Through the FOIA IT
Working Group formed in October 2011, items being discussed include:
Ways to collect the IT requirements of FOIA professionals and communicate those to the companies that create
products for this audience;
Technologies that agencies now use that can be re-purposed for FOIA (such as using the Intelink intranet to
streamline consultations and referrals);
Increasing participation in the FOIA Module and helping agencies recognize the potential benefits and cost savings of
this effort; and
Applying this group’s unique knowledge to FOIA issues such as database requests and releasing best practices to help
agencies better navigate them.
5.3 Electronic Records Archives (ERA)
(http://www.archives.gov/era/)
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has set out on an ambitious course to tackle a great challenge
facing archives around the world ensuring that electronic records created today remain accessible and verifiable as authentic
records, long after the software and hardware used to produce these records have ceased to exist. NARA’s solution to this
challenge is the Electronic Records Archives, or ERA, a one-of-a-kind system designed to archive the wide variety of electronic
records known today, and to prepare for new types of records to be archived in the future.
Permanent records are made available to the public once we have screened them to protect sensitive information, including,
but not limited to, national security, personal privacy, and law enforcement information. This is true for electronic records
too.
ERA today is a complex information management system that was developed to archive the variety of records that the
government currently creates in electronic format. ERA is designed to support access by authorized users within the National
34
Archives and across the Federal Government, as well as any individual anywhere who has access to the internet. The
continued existence of ERA is crucial to open government because of the role it will provide in long-term preservation and
access to electronic records.
ERA is really a “system of systems,” with multiple components that perform different archival functions and that manage
records governed by different legal frameworks. The actual architecture is more complicated, but the diagram below shows
the four essential functions that ERA performs.
Government agencies use the Submission function to deliver records and metadata into ERA. Electronic records are
preserved and reviewed in the Repository. The National Archives’ knowledge of what those historically valuable records are,
who created them and why, and what processes have been applied to them is all documented in the Metadata. Finally, the
public uses the Access function to do research on records that have been screened by archivists to remove restricted
information (there are separate, non-public kinds of access for restricted records, as well.)
Access to Electronic Records
Our holdings are constantly growing as the proliferation of Government electronic records continues. New records are
arriving faster than they can be processed. At the same time, the public demand for access is increasing. The expectation of
easy online access to our holdings continues to grow.
As of the end of March 2012, ERA supported over 184 TB of electronic records, including records from the George W. Bush
White House, many Federal agencies, and Congress. The National Archives’ provides public access to a portion of electronic
records from ERA through the Online Public Access (OPA). OPA is the National Archives’ online public portal to the
permanent records of the Federal government. OPA currently features:
Descriptions of nearly 75% of our traditional holdings (textual records), 77% percent of our artifacts, and over 95% of
our electronic records.
Provides a federated search to all of our Archives.gov pages and the Presidential Library web pages so researchers will
no longer need to perform separate searches for finding aids or other information related to our records.
Provides access to nearly one million electronic records in the Electronic Records Archives (ERA), which are not
available elsewhere online.
Transforming How We Do Business with Federal Agencies
ERA is transforming the way that NARA currently works with Federal agencies to manage their records and business
information, regardless of format. By the end of 2012, all agencies are required to use this evolving system to meet the Nation’s
requirements to preserve and make our records available in perpetuity.
ERA is a functioning, secure repository for electronic records that is already being used by most large Federal agencies and is
on track to support all agencies by the end September 2012.
ERA supports records management functions, allowing an automatic link between the disposition authority, the
request to transfer records, and the actual electronic records being transferred.
ERA provides online tools for Federal agencies to create and submit new record schedules to request disposition
authority and transfer documentation to send permanent records to the archives.
35
ERA provides vastly improved support for preservation of electronic records. ERA incorporates a Transformation
Framework that will provide flexible support for format migrations as needed. The Archives’ current policy is to
maintain the records in the format in which they were transferred in addition to any transformed version.
It streamlines access to Presidential records. The component for Presidential records supports review functionality
for restrictions and redaction of restricted content, allowing the Archives to release Presidential records to the public
when they become eligible for public request through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
As the ERA's system capabilities increase over time, NARA staff will be able to provide more consistent, informed, and timely
assistance to agency records officers and will ensure NARA identifies, preserves, and makes available archival records for
future generations.
Collaboration with ERA Stakeholders
NARA works closely with Federal agency personnel to prepare them for using ERA. Agencies are invited to a “kickoff” meeting
where they learn the sequence of steps needed to request user accounts, access training, and generally learn how to use the
system. NARA holds its kickoff meetings on a monthly basis. The ERA web site for agencies using ERA is located at
http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/era/ and has links to online training, user guides, and account request forms.
Support for users of ERA does not end with the establishment of user accounts. Monthly ERA “Boot Camps” reinforce the
online resources by providing agency staff with hands-on training and a forum for answering questions and learning about
ERA best practices. At the request of agency customers, NARA conducts ERA demonstrations and provides tailored training
on ERA.
To ensure NARA has built and will continue to improve a system that meets the needs of its users, it has held two focus groups
with Federal agency users and conducted one user satisfaction survey. Feedback from the survey groups are currently being
used to improve the system, for example, in developing a more effective reporting capability. More surveys and focus groups
are planned during FY 2012.
To ensure continued engagement and partnership with ERA stakeholders, NARA engages in a robust program of
communications, advocacy and outreach with the wider archival community, including non-Federal entities. NARA provides
support to quarterly meetings of the Federal Advisory Committee on the Electronic Records Archives (ACERA). It gives
presentations to the federal community through its Bi-monthly Records and Information Discussion Group (BRIDG) Meetings
and posts occasional ERA updates to its Records Express blog,
available at
http://blogs.archives.gov/records-express.
For more information about the Electronic Records Archive, please
visit
http://www.archives.gov/era
5.4 National Declassification Center (NDC)
(http://www.archives.gov/declassification)
On December 29, 2009, President Barack Obama signed Executive
Order 13526 in which he directed an overhaul of the way documents
created by the Federal Government are classified and declassified. To
oversee this initiative and to implement the changes, the President
directed the creation of the National Declassification Center (NDC),
now located within the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA). The NDC is strengthening open government because it has
improved coordination and collaboration between agencies and
effectively streamlined the declassification process.
Streamlining the Declassification Process
The NDC has streamlined the declassification process throughout the Federal Government. In particular, it has accelerated
the processing of historically valuable classified records in which more than one agency has an interest and prioritized
declassification based on researcher interest and the likelihood of declassification whenever practical. Ultimately the goal of
the NDC is to standardize the development of common declassification processes among agencies. Certain records may
remain classified for longer periods, including information concerning war plans, weapons of mass destruction, human
intelligence sources and methods, and in certain cases, diplomatic relations conducted with other nations. The NDC is
The NDC is addressing the
backlog of some 400
million pages of classified
records, including some
pertaining to military
operations and World War
II, the Korean War, and
the Vietnam War.
36
addressing the backlog of some 400 million pages of classified records, including some pertaining to military operations and
World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, and leading an inter-agency quality review assessment that is
eliminating multiple re-reviews.
In fine tuning the processes and risk management strategy introduced during the previous two years, and drastically
streamlining data capture, NDC is successfully working with other government agency partners to adjudicate multi-equity
documents, while protecting the most sensitive information. Series within the backlog are prioritized for NDC processing
based on researcher requests, the significance of the historical topic, and the quality of the earlier review.
In addition to our routine high volume processing efforts aimed at retiring the backlog by the mandated due date, we
coordinated referral and declassification processing for two additional special collections in 2011:
Backlog records related to the construction of the Berlin Wall, and
The full Pentagon Papers.
In 2012, we are processing backlog records supporting an additional three topical collections:
Records related to the Katyn Atrocities,
Records with information related to POW/MIA concerns, and
Records related to the Cuban Missile Crises.
In addition to improving the review and release process for series of historical records in the backlog, the NDC has improved
processes for specific documents requested under FOIA and the MDR provision of E.O. 13526. The new processes have led to
better tracking of requests and faster referral to the equity-holding agencies.
Coordination with Federal Agencies
In working across government, the NDC is promoting effective, transparent, and standard processes, training, and quality
assurance measures for declassifying documents. The purpose of this extensive collaboration is to enable other agencies, as
well as the NDC staff, to recognize each other's designation of classified information and interpret it correctly during the
review process. In addition, the President has directed agencies to continually review their classification and declassification
guidelines to make sure they are up to date and do not result in unnecessary classification or classification for longer periods
than necessary.
In coordinating and leading inter agency teams established to provide NDC-directed quality assurance equity identification
and review on prioritized record series, NDC is successfully working with other government agency partners to resolve
identified equities, protect only the most sensitive information, declassify and prepare for release a projected 80% of the
backlog classified records held at NARA by the 31 December 2013 deadline.
National Archives' Leadership Role
The President's order gives the National Archives a leadership role in ensuring that millions of classified records are
declassified and made available for the people to inspect and for historians to mine to enrich the account of our nation's
history much sooner than otherwise would have been possible. The National Archives has long embraced providing the public
as much access as possible to the records that document the rights of our citizens so they may exercise them fully. The NDC is
assisting NARA in this mission.
In working with our other government agency partners, we are leveraging their expertise in their agency-specific sensitive
equity with our own in records management, overall national security information knowledge, and declassification processing
as we develop a series of courses aimed at establishing a baseline of review capability and quality common across government.
In 2011 we hosted a four-day equity training conference attended by 300 declassification reviewers representing 25 agencies.
We are on track for the development of a series of eight courses that would be available government wide.
5.5 Office of the Federal Register (OFR)
(http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/)
The National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Office of the Federal Register (OFR) provides ready access to the
37
official text of Federal laws, Presidential documents, administrative regulations and notices, and descriptions of Federal
organizations, programs, and activities. Office of the Federal Register publications include the daily Federal Register, the
currently updated Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR), the annual Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Privacy Act
Issuances, Public and Private Laws, U.S. Statutes at Large, the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, the Daily
Compilation of Presidential Documents, and the U.S. Government Manual. All Federal Register publications are produced
jointly with the Government Printing Office (GPO) under a long-standing statutory partnership. The two agencies continue
to develop GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys) and allied web services to replace the aging print-centric Federal Register
publication system with a modern Web 2.0 legal information platform. In 2012, the initial transition to FDsys was completed
as the old GPO Access system was retired.
Open Government at the Federal Register
The idea of open government is the very reason for the Office of the Federal Register's existence. The Federal Register Act of
1935 was the nation’s first open government law, the forerunner of the Administrative Procedure Act, Government in the
Sunshine Act, and the Freedom of Information Act. The Office of the Federal Register was established to provide public
notice and due process of law by ensuring that legal issuances could no longer be adopted in secret and arbitrarily enforced
against the public. In 1993, the Congress authorized GPO to place the Federal Register online. The Administrative Committee
of the Federal Register and the OFR/GPO partnership incorporated all major Federal Register publications into GPO’s system
for online access. GPO’s Federal Digital System now supports most Federal Register publications with XML-structured data in
a modern content management system, backed by powerful search technology. The publications are no longer sequestered
inside a closed system, they are now broadly accessible on the surface of the Web. The Office of the Federal Register and GPO
also make the Federal Register and CFR available as bulk XML data to enable anyone to consume regulatory content and re-
purpose it for particular communities of interest.
Federal Register 2.0
The Office of the Federal Register's modernization plans, sometimes referred to as “Federal Register 2.0,” are an expression of
our commitment to open government, and include specific efforts to expand access to regulatory data and other public
information. We launched a new XML-based edition of the Federal Register on July 26, 2010, the 75
th
anniversary of the
Federal Register Act, and since that time have continuously added new features. The new edition, posted on
FederalRegister.gov, democratizes regulatory information by presenting articles in an easy-to-read, web newspaper format
that is accessible to both the expert user and the occasional researcher. The site breaks documents into six major topical areas
and includes a wide array of tools to dig into an ever-growing body of regulatory data. Customers can quickly access
newsworthy and “most popular” documents based on trending news and web metrics. They can filter information by popular
sub-topics and standardized subject terms, and view hundreds of individual agency “home pages.” The site also has automatic
notification options for both the final and pre-publication (“Public Inspection”) versions of Federal Register documents. Users
can customize notifications by agency or by virtually any subject matter. For legal assurance, every HTML-formatted Federal
Register document includes one-click access to the official PDF version authenticated with a digital signature to verify the
material as official, accurate, and complete.
38
Allied Modernization Projects
In parallel with FederalRegister.gov, we developed a new edition of the U.S. Government Manual (usgovernmentmanual.gov)
for access to currently updated information on agency services, organization, and leadership. The site can export XML bulk
data and has on-demand printing capability. Joint Federal Register/GPO development teams are also at work on two CFR
projects. The “Interim e-CFR” project will establish an updated platform and search capability for the currently updated e-
CFR editorial compilation. A longer range “CFR 2.0” project is also underway to create an XML-based, Web 2.0 hub for all
editions of the CFR. This will include a “point-in-time” capability to retrieve each daily instance of the massive CFR database
on a day-forward basis. When the CFR 2.0 project is fully realized, regulated communities and legal researchers will be able to
determine the precise state of the law on any given day, download authenticated digital copies, and have the option to request
print-on-demand copies in an official bound publication format.
Bulk Data Applications
Over the past several years, the Federal Register/GPO partnership has established a new policy framework for open access to
regulatory data. To expand access, we eliminated all data charges and built a bulk repository for Federal Register and CFR
datasets on Data.gov and FDsys.gov. In the past year, we added bulk XML data for the Public Papers of the Presidents and the
U.S. Government Manual. We are also in the process of building connections from Law.Data.gov to an extensive collection of
Executive orders and related contextual information. In addition, all source code for FederalRegister.gov is available free of
charge to application developers on GitHub.com. The open data standards adopted for FDsys also gave us the opportunity to
create an Application Programming Interface (API) in August 2011. The Federal Register API gives private sector and non-
profit groups the tools to create innovative web and mobile device applications on top of our open source code. In particular,
the API can be used to “narrow-cast” information to specialized audiences. For example, a scholar at the Max Planck Institute
for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany used the Federal Register API to create a “Polar Bear Feed” that allows
researchers and environmental activists to track actions affecting this endangered species, from global climate change to
trophy hunting. Every polar bear-related action published in the Federal Register since 1994 is encompassed in this app.
Data Sharing and Harmonization
The Federal Register/GPO development team is joined in an informal data harmonization project with the Office of
Management and Budget, the General Services Administration (GSA) (reginfo.gov), and the eRulemaking program
(regulations.gov). These central management agencies operate various information systems for regulatory documents, public
comment dockets, and regulatory agenda material. The harmonization group explores ways to standardize terminology, track
rulemaking throughout the life-cycle of a regulation, and create data connections among the various agency systems. This
effort now makes it possible for a FederalRegister.gov user to submit comments on a proposed rule directly into the
Screen shot of the homepage of FederalRegister.gov
39
Regulations.gov docket and to view comments submitted by others. Enhanced data connections give Federal Register users
one-click access to the history of a rulemaking in the Unified Agenda, and lets them quickly determine whether a rule is
economically significant or affects small businesses. The group is also exploring ways to attach descriptive metadata to
previously undefined document sub-types, such as direct final rules, interim rules, and petitions for rulemaking. The Office of
the Federal Register has also launched a cooperative venture with GSA’s USASearch team. GSA can use our API to integrate
Federal Register documents directly into agency search indexes, eliminating duplicative postings by content managers. In
addition, we have discussed automated sharing of Federal Register meeting notices to create a Government-wide calendar of
public participation opportunities on USA.gov. As web meeting technology becomes ubiquitous, we envision this events
calendar developing into an “American Town Hall.”
Digitization
The Office of the Federal Register aspires to make the pre-electronic editions of Federal Register publications available online.
Current authority prevents GPO from directing resources towards the digitization of previously published material, such as
the pre-1994 Federal Register and the pre-1997 editions of the CFR. However, GPO has received Congressional permission to
post digitized editions of our U.S. Statutes at Large (1951-2002) on FDsys.gov, in cooperation with the Library of Congress. The
project has been a resounding success in terms of maintaining the fidelity of the publication and expanding access to material
that is largely unavailable anywhere else on the Internet. We are currently conducting outreach to gauge public interest in the
digitization of the various other Federal Register publications.
Going Mobile
The Office of the Federal Register and GPO received permission from their Administrative Committee of the Federal Register
oversight body to explore mobile applications and e-book technology for Federal Register publications. The first mobile app
to be developed is the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents, which will be designed to operate on Android, Apple,
and Blackberry devices. The app will offer in-depth access to Executive orders and memoranda, speeches, official
correspondence, and many other Presidential actions. On-board tools for geographic information and frequency data should
be of particular interest to the media and scholars. GPO is also developing e-book instances for our Public Papers of the
Presidents series. All OFR/GPO mobile applications will be constructed consistent with the National Information Exchange
Model (NIEM.gov) to promote inter-agency collaboration for innovative and efficient solutions.
5.6 National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)
(http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/)
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) is the means by which the National Archives
interacts with archives and historical records repositories across the nation to provide access to the nation’s most important
historical records. The NHPRC enables the National Archives to reach beyond those Federal records under its stewardship to
assist in the preservation and publication of collections of records held by state and local governments, nonprofit
organizations, colleges and universities, and other institutions. It carries out this mission through competitive grants for
archives preservation and access projects, by investing in research and development in new archival methodsparticularly for
electronic records, and through public policy leadership.
Congress created the NHPRC in the same 1934 Act that established the National Archives, acknowledging that some of
nation’s most vital historical records are often held outside of Federal stewardship, including the documents and papers of
America’s Founding Fathers, dozens of U.S. presidents and statesmen, civil rights leaders, scientists, inventors, and records
that are primarily important to state and local history. Through the NHPRC, the National Archives make an investment in the
network of repositories that comprise the nation’s archives, and helps preserve and make accessible those records, wherever
located, vital to citizens’ understanding of our rights, history, and culture.
40
Grant Awards and Performance
The NHPRC awards a variety of competitive grants to
projects all across the nation. As part of its effort to
increase access to historical records, the NHPRC routinely
makes information available to the public about the results
of those projects.
Current Information about NHPRC awards
We report all grants made to the federal website,
USASpending.gov, on a monthly basis. All NHPRC grants
from 2001 to the present are featured on USASpending.gov
including recipient name, project title, amount awarded,
project period, location, and additional information.
Individuals may also download the information into a
variety of formats (such as csv or XML files).
Information about NHPRC awards since the 1960s
After each Commission meeting, we update our website
with new award information
(
http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/projects/states-
territories/). Information is arranged according to state.
Grants for Archives and Records projects are briefly
described. Publishing projects that receive support are reported
cumulatively. The website is coded as individual HTML pages. In
addition, in 2011, the NHPRC compiled in a spreadsheet all information
on grants from the 1960s to 1986. The information from 1986 to the
present is stored in our Grants Management System, a relational
database maintained internally. Depending on the availability of
resources, we plan to integrate the information maintained in these two resources to create a publicly searchable database, so
that the public can examine trends in grants over a longer term.
Quantitative results of grants
We report monthly via the National Archives’ Performance Management Report System (PMRS) the results of completed
grants, including the number of cubic feet and electronic records preserved, amount of digital facsimiles created, and volumes
published. In addition, we assess the overall success of each project. The information is available in a summary format in the
Annual Performance Plan for the National Archives, with success rates beginning in 2002, and complete information after
2004.
Narrative information
The public has access to qualitative results of specific grants via our Facebook daily postings, our bi-monthly online
newsletter, our annual report, and our contribution to the National Archives’ Performance and Accountability Report.
Creation of New Resources Using Historical Records
Founders Online
In late June 2012, the National Archives will be the host for a new web resource, Founders Online, which will provide access to
the papers of John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and George
Washington. The editorial projects that work on these papers have drawn from collections worldwide, and most of them
include transcriptions of documents maintained by the National Archives. This new free online web resource is being
developed by the University of Virginia through a cooperative agreement with the NHPRC. It will give the public
unprecedented access to authoritative transcriptions of the Founders’ letters and other writings. The initial release of over
92,000 items in June 2012 will continue to expand over the following 30 months to include additional published documents as
well as previously unreleased transcriptions. We are exploring potential educational and teaching uses of this new resource
with the National Archives Education Staff.
Investment in Research and Development
Collection of documents from the Families of Vietnamese
Political Prisoners Association Collection at Texas Tech
University. An NHPRC grant will help digitize these
records of Vietnamese refugees to the United States.
Image courtesy of the Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas
Tech University.
41
Model Approaches to Increasing Online Access to Historical Materials
The NHPRC began a grant program, Digitizing Historical Resources, in 2006 and continues today. This program focuses on
“mass digitization” of archives and emphasizes the digitization of entire series of nationally significant, already processed
archival materials, using existing finding aids to provide the necessary metadata. The approach has drawn an enthusiastic
response from the archival community, as it provides access to large quantities of materials without the labor intensive and
costly process of creating item-level metadata. A number of state and local government agencies and universities have been
grant recipients. Millions of documents already have been digitized and make widely available online through this grant
program with the volume growing each year.
Model Approaches to Revealing “Hidden” Collections of Archives
Less than a decade ago, the NHPRC awarded a grant to a pair of
research archivists to study the costs associated with
organizing and cataloging modern archival materials,
particularly the records of organizations and governmental
entities. The resulting published study provided a thorough
and profoundly influential cost analysis that suggested that
archives would save money and time by focusing more on
providing timely and broad access to ALL holdings rather than
in depth access to a limited portion of their archives. The
result would be better overall public access, because “hidden”
collections (often called backlogs) would be significantly
reduced or eliminated. The NHPRC has followed up the study
with a series of grant programs that supported this new
approach to archival work, and these grant programs continue
today. Many of the nation’s largest archives, often with
sizeable backlogs, are now considering or actively using this
approach, and the list grows each year.
The papers of Captain Alexander Robinson, a Brooklyn, New
York, merchant seaman who was a captain during the War of
1812, currently housed in a classic sea chest at the Peabody Essex
Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. An NHPRC grant is helping
reveal “hidden” collections in the archives. Image courtesy of the
Peabody Essex Museum.
42
Appendix A: Summary of Comments Received from the Public
The following summary represents comments, ideas, and votes received on the Open Government Idea Forum
(
http://naraopengov.ideascale.com/) and the NARAtions Blog (http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/) received from
February 22 March 21, 2012. Nineteen ideas on the Open Government Idea Forum received 23 comments and 158 votes from
more than 80 users. Two comments were posted to the NARAtions Blog.
We continue to welcome your ideas and comments on the NARAtions Blog or via email at [email protected]. For more
information about opportunities to participate and to follow open government updates, please visit
http://www.archives.gov/open.
Declassification
Create a JFK Records Declassification Project:
This idea received the most “I agree” votes (37) and comments (12) on the Open Government Idea Forum. Supporters
for this idea indicated that a project should be undertaken to declassify remaining records before the 50th anniversary
in 2013.
Initial Response:
We recognize the ongoing interest of historians, researchers, and the public in the records related to the assassination
of President John F. Kennedy. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 mandated
that all assassination-related material be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA). The resulting collection consists of more than 5 million pages of assassination-related
records, photographs, motion pictures, sound records and artifacts (approximately 2,000 cubic feet of records). Most
of the records are open for research. Unless approved for continued withholding by the President of the United
States, the remaining closed records will be released in 2017 as mandated by Congress through the JFK Assassination
Records Collection Act of 1992. To learn more about the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection,
please visit:
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/
Legislative proposal to repeal or modify the terms of the Kyl-Lott Amendment:
This idea was posted to the
NARAtions Blog and suggested NARA should perform an assessment of statutory
obstacles to the success of its mission, specifically the Kyl-Lott Amendment, and then petition Congress for legislative
relief. A separate comment indicated belief in the continued usefulness of the Kyl-Lott Amendment.
Initial Response:
In its 2008 Report to the President, the Public Interest Declassification Board recommended that the President re-
examine the status of Formerly Restricted Data (FRD). We agree that the status of FRD in historical records should
be reconsidered, especially the concept of 'downgrading' FRD to National Security Information (NSI). Currently,
Restricted Data/Formerly Restricted Data (RD/FRD) are excluded from review. Were FRD downgraded to NSI, it
would be subject to review for potential declassification and release. Unfortunately not all FRD is created equal and a
universal transclassification of FRD to NSI may not afford all information the appropriate level of protection. If a
change in policy were made, we would still have to review each document in the backlog for RD/FRD in order to make
document-level assessments as to which category, RD (and still excluded from declassification) or NSI, is appropriate
for each document. Although we believe that these changes will eventually lead to the release of more historical
information, at least initially, this process may take more time as a careful review of documents will replace a reactive
automatic exclusion. In a nutshell, we believe that FRD reform will lead to greater release of information but no time
saved in processing the records in the backlog. FRD reform does hold the promise of future efficiencies if, going
forward, FRD review could be included as part of an agency’s initial review. Learn more about the implications of the
Kyl-Lott review on the NDC Blog at
http://blogs.archives.gov/ndc/?p=319.
Online Public Access
Improve Online Public Access:
On the Open Government Idea Forum we sought ideas for improving Online Public Access. The overall idea garnered
14 “I agree” votes and six comments. Ideas generated include:
43
o Make it clear what records require a FOIA request for access and easy to submit the FOIA request online
o Enhance tagging features to include the ability to tag directly on the digital copy
o Improve system performance because Online Public Access is very slow to use.
Initial Response:
As we look to improving Online Public Access we will explore possibilities for indicating additional features related to
FOIA information and request, as well as additional tagging features, and improvements in system performance.
The following table includes the 19 ideas posted on the Open Government Idea Forum and numbers of “I agree” votes, “I
disagree” votes. Only idea #1 (Create a JFK Records Declassification Project) and idea #2 (Online Public Access should be
improved) garnered a significant number of comments, with idea #1 receiving 12 comments and idea #2 receiving 6 comments.
# Idea
agree
Votes
disagree
votes
1
Create a JFK Records Declassification Project
37
0
2
Online Public Access (OPA) should be improved
14
0
3
Include AV records for transcription
11
1
4 Include more datasets on Data.gov 10 0
5
Include transcriptions in the National Archives
Catalog 11 3
6
Digitize archival records responsive to FOIA
8
1
7
Add social media features to Archives.gov
7
1
8
Include translations on the Citizen Archivist
Dashboard 6 1
9
Release more software code on GitHub to encourage
collaboration 6 1
10
Update the Digitization Strategy of the National
Archives 5 0
11
Collaborate with other organizations on
crowdsourcing 4 1
12
Define the role of citizen archivists at the National
Archives 4 1
13
Digitize pre-electronic Federal Register publications
4
1
14
Archives.gov should be improved
3
1
15
Develop mobile apps and ebooks for Federal Register
publications 3 1
16
More crowdsourcing tools for the Citizen Archivist
Dashboard 3 1
17
Convene international archives leaders on open
government 3 2
18
Utilize new social media tools
1
1
19
Add digitized materials requested by the public to
Archives.gov 0 0
44
Appendix B: 2012-2014 Open Government Plan Proposed Actions
The following table includes all National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) 2012-2014 Open Government Plan
proposed actions and specific sections in which they can be found.
# 2012-2014 Open Gov Plan PROPOSED ACTION
2012 Plan
SECTION
TOPIC
1
We will revisit the strategic planning process and work to align NARA’s Strategic
Plan with the agency’s transformation.
2.1
Sustaining Open
Gov
2
Our ongoing efforts to improve employee engagement include:
Hiring additional staff in the Human Capital Office to lead targeted
initiatives to increase employee satisfaction and engagement
Revamping leadership development curriculum to emphasize importance
of employee engagement
Revamping the Individual Development Planning process to ensure
training is mapped to needed competencies and career goals
Preparing to launch agency-wide mentoring program
Identifying tools with voting capability to capture staff ideas for
improvements across the agency
2.2
Employee
Engagement
3
We will continue to explore ways to facilitate greater collaboration and knowledge
sharing through the Internal Collaboration Network. We will identify and
recognize best practices and successful case studies on the network.
2.2
Employee
Engagement
5
We will continue to strengthen our relationships with individual citizen archivists
and groups that are interested in providing contributions. We will also explore any
new or interesting ways of engaging citizen archivists, including exploring new
tools that help make contributing easy and fun.
3.1
Citizen Archivist
Initiative
6
We will explore how to make the Drupal module developed for the National
Archives Transcription Pilot Project available on a code-sharing site like GitHub.
3.1
Citizen Archivist
Initiative
7
We will explore ways to improve the National Archives Transcription Pilot Project,
including ways to more effectively crowdsource the review of transcriptions.
3.1
Citizen Archivist
Initiative
8
We will update our digitization strategy and consider the following ideas:
Improve in-house digitization workflow and technology to support that
workflow
Explore expanding work with digitization partners
Explore “Day Forward Digitization”
Consider records management solutions that would allow us to receive all
government records in digital form
Encourage public participation and collaboration in digitizing and
describing our records for online access and use
3.2
Digitization
Strategy
9
We will continue to leverage NARA’s Social Media Strategy to guide our endeavors :
Revolutionize communication and collaboration within our staff
community
Engage with the Government community
Build and strengthen our relationships with researchers and citizen
archivists
3.3
Social Media
Strategy
10
We will move our public website, Archives.gov to a cloud based solution. We will
implement Drupal, a content management system for Archives.gov.
3.4
Innovations in
Archives.gov
11
We will continue to improve the user experience with Online Public Access (OPA)
and consider the following:
Displaying citizen-contributed transcriptions
Evolving OPA into a platform
3.5
Innovations in
Online Public
Access
45
Developing useful application programming interfaces (APIs)
Making OPA more accessible for possible data mining
12
We will launch a “Developers” webpage at
http://www.archives.gov/developers to
centralize information relevant to the developer community.
4.1
Developers,
Datasets, and
Proactive Release
of Information
13
We will publish the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) Performance Measures to
Data.gov
4.1
Developers,
Datasets, and
Proactive Release
of Information
14
We will publish Executive Orders to Data.gov to be included in the new
Law.Data.gov community.
4.1
Developers,
Datasets, and
Proactive Release
of Information
15
The Plain Writing Working Group will:
Develop an online introductory course for all employees
Review documents prepared for military veterans
Update NARA’s Style Guide
Write articles on plain language for NARA staff
4.2
Plain Writing at
the National
Archives
16
We will establish and begin operating a new Records and Information Management
Network consisting of Information Management Officers in each functional area
supported by one or more Record Custodians.
4.3
Records
Management at
NARA
17
We will continue to work toward a reduction of our backlog of pending Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) requests.
4.4 FOIA at NARA
18
We will continue to update the Open Gov webpage (Archives.gov/open) to inform
the public of milestones, events, publications, blog posts, and opportunities for
public participation.
4.5
Open Gov Web
Page
19
We will strive to communicate in an efficient and clear way the major milestones
and significant actions and business of our agency.
4.5
Informing the
Public of Our
Progress
20
We will continue to prepare the E-Government report in compliance with the E-
Government Act of 2002. These reports will be available at
http://www.archives.gov/about/plans-reports/e-gov
4.5
Compliance with
Transparency
Initiative Guidance
21
We will (in conjunction with OMB and the Associate Attorney General) issue a
Records Management Directive outlining a 21st century framework for managing
government records.
5.1
Records
Management
22
We will review relevant statutes, regulations, and official guidance to identify
opportunities for reforms that would improve Government-wide records
management practices, particularly with respect to electronic records. With OMB,
we will submit to the President the results of this review.
5.1
Records
Management
23
We will send to Congress and OMB a report based on analysis of data from annual
agency self-assessments.
5.1
Records
Management
24
We will report annual to Congress and OMB on the status of other records
management activities.
5.1
Records
Management
25
We will continue to provide a wide variety of electronic records management
guidance and best practices for Federal agencies in order to assist them in
addressing these identified deficiencies.
5.1
Records
Management
26
We will work in partnership with the EPA and Department of Commerce to build a
multi-agency FOIA Module.
5.2
Office of Gov’t
Information
Services (OGIS)
27
We will continue to organize a group of FOIA and information technology
professionals (IT) to collaborate on ways to apply existing technology to improve
the FOIA process.
5.2
Office of Gov’t
Information
Services (OGIS)
28
In 2012, we will process backlog records supporting three topical collections:
those related to the Katyn Atrocities,
5.4
National
Declassification
46
those with information related to POW/MIA concerns, and
those related to the Cuban Missile Crisis
Center (NDC)
29
We will build connections from Law.Data.gov to an extensive collection of
Executive Orders and related contextual information.
5.5 Federal Register
30
We will conduct outreach to gauge public interest in the digitization of the various
other Federal Register publications.
5.5 Federal Register
31
We will work with GPO to develop a mobile app for the Daily Compilation of
Presidential Documents. The app will offer in-depth access to Executive Orders
and memoranda, speeches, official correspondence, and many other Presidential
actions.
5.5 Federal Register
32
In late June 2012, we will launch a new web resource, Founders Online, to provide
access to the papers of John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington.
5.6
National Historical
Publications and
Records
Commission
47
Appendix C: Implementation of 2010 Open Government Plan Task List
The following table includes all National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) 2010 Open Government Plan proposed
actions, narrative updates on the implementation, and overall status of each action. The status categories include:
Implemented to indicate work that has been accomplished,
Ongoing to indicate work that continues,
Forthcoming to indicate tasks that have not yet been completed, and
Cancelled to indicate tasks that are no longer being pursued.
Please refer to NARA’s 2010 Open Government Plan for additional information, available at
http://www.archives.gov/open/open-plan.html.
# 2010 Open Gov Plan PROPOSED ACTION
2010 Plan
SECTION
TOPIC/
STATUS
1 Formally charge our Open Government Working Group
Executive
Summary
Open
Government
Update: The Archivist of the United States approved and signed the charter for the
NARA Open Government Working Group.
Implemented
2
Actively seek employee input and buy-in on important initiatives / increase
involvement through feedback mechanisms
3.3 / 5.2
Employee
Engagement
Update: The National Archives has utilized a variety of feedback mechanisms
including surveys, IdeaScale, blogs, and in the Internal Collaboration Network.
Employees have participated in the following topics: employee satisfaction, budget
issues, redesign of Archives.gov, Transformation, Online Public Access, and office-
specific initiatives.
Implemented
and ongoing
3 Identify, develop, and support champions for change 3.3
Employee
Engagement
Update: NARA senior staff were briefed on the concept in 2010. Several working
groups at the National Archives have fostered champions for change at the National
Archives over the last two years, including the Transformation Task Force and the
Social Media Working Group.
Implemented
and ongoing
4 Allow employees to spend a percentage of their time on "passion projects" 3.3
Employee
Engagement
Update: NARA Senior staff were briefed on the concept and specific examples of
“passion projects” in 2010. Additionally, Our Archives Wiki launched July 2010 as a
platform for the public as well as employees to describe records, collections, and
provide images as available.
http://www.ourarchives.wikispaces.net/
Implemented
and ongoing
5
Improve employee access to web-based training and core services to build 21st
century skills
3.3 / 5.2
Employee
Engagement
Update: Throughout the last two years, National Archives staff have participated in
online public engagement and social media tools, which have increased 21st century
skills. During the Summer of 2010, almost 800 NARA employees participated in
“Budget Brainstorming,” based on the web-based voting platform, IdeaScale. Since
then, NARA staff have been involved in internal and external blogs, and a variety of
social media tools.
Implemented
and ongoing
6 Equip employees with the technology needed to do their jobs 3.3
Employee
Engagement
Update: In 2010, Novell and Groupwise upgrades were completed. In early 2012,
NARA began early stages of implementation of the Internal Collaboration Network.
Implemented
and ongoing
7 Develop a professional network for NARA employees (like NASA's Spacebook) 3.3
Employee
Engagement
Update: During Fiscal Year 2012, the Internal Collaboration Network began to be
rolled out to NARA staff.
Implemented
and ongoing
48
8
Continue to incorporate online public engagement through Regulations.gov and
RegInfo.gov when creating and revising NARA regulations
3.4
Public
Engagement
Update: We welcome comments from the public and from other agencies that may
be affected by our proposed regulation. Comments can tell us that there is agreement
or support for what we are proposing, or disagreement, and why. They can also
provide us with new information or other points of view to consider, and with
suggestions for ways in which to make the regulation stronger or more effective. This
can be especially important in cases where we are proposing a rule that affects a
variety of different groups or individuals.
Most proposed regulations we develop have a 60-day comment period. During this
time, people and organizations can comment on the proposed rule at
www.regulations.gov, by fax, by mail, or by hand delivery (contact information under
Submitting Comments). Direct-to-final rules usually have a shorter comment period
of 30 days.
We read and consider all comments we receive during the comment period. Once we
consider the comments, we often revise the regulation to include recommended
changes. Whether we change the regulation or not, we address the comments we
have received and explain our response to them.
Implemented
and ongoing
9
Develop a publicly available web page that will explain NARA's regulatory process
(like EPA’s Rulemaking Gateway)
3.4
Public
Engagement
Update: NARA has provided a step-by-step narrative about how it develops or
changes regulations, available at
http://www.archives.gov/about/regulations/process.html
Implemented
10
Develop public engagement as a highly-valued and measured aspect of all employees’
jobs
3.4
Public
Engagement
Update: Encouraged as an element of Individual Development Plans (IDPs) and
through expanded use of social media throughout the agency. “Join the Chorus,” a
blog post by the Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, discusses the ongoing
role of social media for NARA employees. This post is available at
http://blogs.archives.gov/aotus/?p=4148
Implemented
and ongoing
11 Develop incentives to increase collaboration among employees and the public 3.4
Public
Engagement
Update: Through expanded use of social media throughout the agency, NARA staff
are becoming increasingly competent in engaging and collaborating with the public.
To see the extent to which social media engagement has expanded at the National
Archives, please visit
http://www.archives.gov/social-media/
Implemented
and ongoing
12
Proactive identification and engagement of constituencies and online communities
who are interested in our work and sharing their own work
3.4
Public
Engagement
Update: NARA continues to do outreach and engagement in different areas,
including citizen archivists, researchers, genealogists, and Wikipedians. More about
this work can be found at
http://www.archives.gov/social-media/ and
http://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist
Implemented
and ongoing
13 Develop an Archives wiki (like the UK Archives wiki) 3.4/4.3
Public
Engagement
Update: Launched in July 2010, Our Archives Wiki is available at
http://www.ourarchives.wikispaces.net/
Implemented
and ongoing
14
Develop a social media strategy to fully integrate social media into the work of the
National Archives
4.1
Social Media
Strategy
Update: Completed December 2010 and available at http://www.archives.gov/social-
media/strategies/
Implemented
and ongoing
15
Explore publishing the social media strategy online in a wiki so that the public can
easily collaborate
4.1
Social Media
Strategy
Update: NARA’s Social Media Working Group utilizing an internal wiki to develop
Implemented
49
the draft of the social media strategy. For public input, the strategy was shared and
comments were welcomed on the NARAtions blog and the NARA Facebook page for
researchers.
16 Have a presence in every major social media application 4.1
Social Media
Strategy
Update: The National Archives has an extensive social media presence and explores
new tools as they become available. Please visit http://www.archives.gov/social-
media/ for NARA’s social media directory.
Implemented
and ongoing
17
Develop a growing sense of responsibility for NARA to be a Federal Government
leader in social media
4.1
Social Media
Strategy
Update: To illustrate leadership in social media and to increase transparency in our
social media practices, NARA has published social media policies, strategy, statistics,
signed terms of service agreements, and guidance. Please visit
http://www.archives.gov/social-media for more information
Implemented
and ongoing
18 Build social media into our job descriptions 4.1
Social Media
Strategy
Update: With increased tools and social media presence, more and more NARA staff
are involved in social media. The Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero,
discussed the need for NARA staff to engage in social media in the blog post “Join the
Chorus” available at
http://blogs.archives.gov/aotus/?p=4148
Implemented
and ongoing
19
Demonstrate with concrete metrics how we have improved our reach using social
media
4.1
Social Media
Strategy
Update:
Visit http://www.archives.gov/social-media/reports/ to see increasing reach
of the National Archives through social media
Implemented
and ongoing
20
Develop a streamlined search capability for our online holdings (unlock online
records from previously stove-piped systems)
4.2
Improved
Search
Update: December 2010, Online Public Access is publicly launched at
http://www.archives.gov/research/search/
Implemented
and ongoing
21
Turn our catalog into a social catalog (allow our users to contribute information
about our holdings)
4.2
Improved
Search
Update: April 2011, bookmarking and sharing are introduced in Online Public Access;
June 2011, tagging is introduced in Online Public Access.
Implemented
and ongoing
22 Redesign Archives.gov to be more user-focused 4.3
Web Site for
Participation
Update: July 2010, the public and NARA staff are invited to vote for four designs to
improve Archives.gov. December 2010, the redesigned Archives.gov is launched.
Archives.gov has won several awards for plain language and usability. Learn more at
http://www.archives.gov/open/redesign/.
Implemented
and ongoing
23
Convene an agency-level digitization working group to develop strategies on best
approaches to streamlining and leveraging current processes
4.4 Digitization
Update: A digitization working group formed in 2010 and met weekly. This group
will be reformulated in response to NARA’s transformation and reorganization.
Implemented
and ongoing
24
Develop partnership and in-house digitization registries to track progress; make
them online and open to the public
4.4 Digitization
Update: Microfilm publications and original records digitized by our digitization
partners are now available on our website at
http://www.archives.gov/digitization/digitized-by-partners.html. Registries have
been established, but are not available on Archives.gov because they contain partner
proprietary information.
Implemented
and ongoing
25
Consider making all collections being considered for digitization publicly available
for discussion and prioritization
4.4 Digitization
Update:
NARA regularly discusses digitization at its quarterly Researcher Forum
meetings. NARA has considered how to involve the public in more discussions about
what to digitize.
Implemented
and ongoing
26
Consider specific recommendations for digitization (e.g. Federal land records, Record
Group 49)
4.4 Digitization
50
Update: NARA has almost 95,000 cubic feet of records from the Bureau of Land
Management (Record Group 49) and is currently working with Fold3 to digitize these
records related to Nebraska homesteads. We also digitized the 1940 census in
response to research requests following the opening of the 1930 census.
Implemented
and ongoing
27
Consider making more genealogy and other family history records available free
online
4.4 Digitization
Update: NARA worked to digitize the 1940 Census and released these images at
http://1940census.archives.gov/ on April 2, 2012. The National Archives is involved in
the community indexing project for the 1940 Census available at
https://the1940census.com/. NARA is also posting War of 1812 Pension and Bounty
Land Warrant Application Files as part of the project with the Federation of
Genealogical Societies and Fold3. This is a multiyear project and NARA will post the
records on a rolling basis. NARA will be able to post the first images created under
our digitization partnerships in its online public access (OPA) beginning in 2013.
Each subsequent year will see additional family history records created under the
partnerships added to OPA for free access.
Implemented
and ongoing
28
Explore "scan on demand" model for digitization
4.4
Digitization
Update:
Scan-on-demand model was piloted for the Vietnam-era deck logs. Due to
the high demand for these records, it was decided to proactively digitize the more
frequently requested deck logs. Some records can also be requested on demand from
the National Archives Trust Fund.
Implemented
and ongoing
29
Pursue digitization projects that harness the work of volunteers, researchers, and the
public
4.4 Digitization
Update: NARA has held several Wikipedian events, including Scan-a-thons to
produce images of records not yet digitized. The Citizen Archivist Dashboard
features an “upload and share” feature that encourages researchers and the public to
share their images of NARA records on Flickr. Additionally, the Civil War
Conservation Corps continues work on preparing Civil War pension files for
scanning. This work continues and this approach will be incorporated in future
digitization strategies.
Implemented
and ongoing
30
Expand NARA's high-value datasets (raw and in other formats) available on Data.gov
and Archives.gov
5.1
High Value
Datasets
Update: NARA has continued to expand the number of high-value datasets available
on Archives.gov and Data.gov, including the US Government Manual, the Public
Papers of the President, and additional years for the Code of Federal Regulations and
the Federal Register. The complete list of datasets is available at
http://www.archives.gov/open/available-datasets.html.
Implemented
and ongoing
31 Release Barack Obama's Public Papers of the President in XML 5.1
High Value
Datasets
Update: Available at
http://www.archives.gov/open/dataset-presidentpaper.html
Implemented
and ongoing
32 Release Classification Management Data of the Executive Branch 5.1
High Value
Datasets
Update: Although this dataset was initially considered for publication on Data.gov,
concerns about the precision of some of the legacy data in this set have prevented its
release. The Classification Management Data of the Executive Branch is available in
aggregate and within the narrative of the Information Security Oversight Office’s
Annual Report to the President available at
http://www.archives.gov/isoo/reports/
Cancelled
33 Release Archival Research Catalog (ARC) performance measures 5.1
High Value
Datasets
Update: The National Archives will publish the performance measures to
Archives.gov and Data.gov utilizing the next generation Data.gov display and
visualization capabilities.
Forthcoming
34
Identify possible datasets in the following categories for future publication: NARA
holdings (permanent historical records of the Federal Government); Freedom of
Information Act information; NARA operational records
5.1
High Value
Datasets
51
Update: Additional datasets have been identified and released in the Office of the
Federal Register, including forthcoming Executive Orders.
Implemented
and ongoing
35
Publicize the availability of data via our Open Government web page and through
social media tools
5.1
High Value
Datasets
Update: The Open Government web page (http://www.archives.gov/open) was
launched in early 2010 and contains pages and updates related to available datasets.
NARA promotes the release of new datasets as they become available. Additionally,
the National Archives will promote datasets to developers through a new web page at
http://www.archives.gov/developer.
Implemented
and ongoing
36
Be available as a resource for questions and troubleshooting for those who are using
the data (via e-mail, our webpage, and social media channels)
5.1
High Value
Datasets
Update: NARA staff answer questions in person, via email, and via social media
channels as needed.
Implemented
and ongoing
37 Develop mobile applications / an “Apps for Archives” contest 5.1
High Value
Datasets
Update: The National Archives launched the Today’s Document mobile application
January 2011. More information on this app is available at
http://www.archives.gov/social-media/todays-doc-app.html. Three contests have
been held “History Happens Here,” “I Found It in the National Archives,” and
“Document Your Environment.” More information about contests can be found here
http://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/contest/.
Implemented
and ongoing
38
Make the Archivist's congressional meetings and conference attendance publicly
available online
5.1
High Value
Datasets
Update: The biweekly calendar of the Archivist of the United States is available at
http://blogs.archives.gov/aotus/?page_id=2175.
Implemented
and ongoing
39
Proactively release records schedules online (including for the period between 1973
and 1985)
5.1/6.1
High Value
Datasets
Update: The Records Control Schedule portal is available at
http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/rcs/.
Implemented
and ongoing
40
Modernize our records management practices and explore new and emerging
recordkeeping technologies
5.2
Records
Management
at NARA
Update: In Fiscal Year 2010 and Fiscal Year 2011, we studied of the state of records
management within NARA, in government, and in the private sector. We ran our
program on three tracks: maintained day-to-day operations, addressed important
recordkeeping challenges, and began designing a methodology to modernize NARA’s
records management program.
Implemented
and ongoing
41
Act as a test bed and leverage “hands-on” experience before NARA promulgates
government-wide records management regulations and policies
5.2
Records
Management
at NARA
Update: Our shared drive cleanup project provided NARA with detailed hands-on
experience that supported Bulletin 2012-02: Guidance on Managing Content on
Shared Drives, December 6, 2011. Our Email Bridge Proof-of-Concept provided
valuable insights that helped to frame the test scenarios for NARA's Email
Management 2.0 Pilot
http://blogs.archives.gov/records-express/?p=1412
Implemented
and ongoing
42
Implement a publicly available website that shows how NARA is meeting its existing
records management requirements
5.2
Records
Management
at NARA
Update: We hope to implement this new web site when tools are available to help us
design and maintain content that we can update regularly.
Forthcoming
43
Share our products, accomplishments, and lessons learned on our new public-facing
web site
5.2
Records
Management
at NARA
Update: Until our new web site is available, CM will share our products in NARA's
Toolkit for Managing Electronic Records.
Implemented
and ongoing
44
Expand the use of multiple tracking queues in order to make sure that simple FOIA
5.3
FOIA at
52
requests are not caught behind more complex requests NARA
Update: NARA has expanded the use of multiple tracking queues, particularly in the
Office of Research Services.
Implemented
and ongoing
45
Allocate additional resources in NW to ensure that all agency FOIA responses on
classified records are reconciled (shift staff priorities to accomplish this task within
existing resources)
5.3
FOIA at
NARA
Update: NARA has not been able to identify additional resources for this goal,
however it is NARA’s hope that the recent reorganization will lead to increased
efficiencies in this area.
Implemented
and ongoing
46 Target our 20 oldest FOIA requests and obtain declassification determination 5.3
FOIA at
NARA
Update: NARA has closed 17 of these 20 oldest FOIA requests since beginning the
effort. An updated list is now being complied so that those can be targeted.
Implemented
and ongoing
47
Contact requesters in extremely old FOIA cases to determine whether they are still
interested in gaining access to the records; better understand what information they
are seeking, and see if they are willing to narrow the request to a smaller subset of
records
5.3
FOIA at
NARA
Update:
This is now the standard procedure for all offices within NARA that handle
FOIA requests.
Implemented
and ongoing
48
Use training opportunities as a method of equipping staff with the knowledge
necessary to independently process FOIA requests (where necessary and appropriate)
5.3
FOIA at
NARA
Update: Since the 2010 report, all regional offices that process FOIA requests have
received new training. Additional training will be provided as needed, and there are
efforts underway to improve communication between the many regional archives
which process FOIA requests.
Implemented
and ongoing
49
Report to the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) for possible
mediation or appropriate resolution delays in processing related to: inability to reach
agreement with a FOIA requester on the scope of his or her request; segmenting
extremely large requests; over our response times
5.3
FOIA at
NARA
Update: NARA has not had an occasion to use OGIS’s mediation services, but
remains willing to participate in a mediation should a need arise.
Implemented
and ongoing
50 Publish frequently requested documents in our Electronic FOIA reading room 5.3
FOIA at
NARA
Update: While updates to the electronic reading room have not been as frequent as
may be desirable, the agency is in the process of moving to a new web content
management system, which will improve offices’ ability to update web content
without relying on web staff members who can properly code pages.
Forthcoming
51 Continue to prepare the E-Gov Report and make it publicly available on our website 5.4
Transparency
Initiative
Compliance
Update: The E-Government Act reports are available at
http://www.archives.gov/about/plans-reports/e-gov/.
Implemented
and ongoing
52
Maintain, update, and provide increased functionality (e.g. email updates) for our
Open Government webpage in a timely fashion
5.5
/open
Website
Update: The Open Government webpage is kept up-to-date with news, events,
conferences, and significant milestones, available at http://www.archives.gov/open
Implemented
and ongoing
53
Make announcements in low-tech and traditional ways (to reach a broad range of
citizens, including those without easy access to the Internet)
5.7
Informing the
Public
Update: These announcements are made in traditional ways as needed.
Implemented
and ongoing
54
Continue to hold public meetings to facilitate immediate exchange of ideas (such as
those held on researcher room changes)
5.7
Informing the
Public
Update: DC-area Researcher Forum meetings have continued on a regular basis.
Additional meetings are held as needed.
Implemented
and ongoing
55 Make announcements through social media channels (to encourage two-way 5.7 Informing the
53
communication with the public) Public
Update: The National Archives engages the public on a variety of social media
channels, including Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.
Implemented
and ongoing
56 Investigate web chat possibilities 5.7
Informing the
Public
Update: The National Archives established a working group to investigate web chat
possibilities. This working group continues to explore leveraging tools to facilitate
better customer service with NARA’s customers.
Implemented
and ongoing
57
Send to Congress and the OMB a report related to agency compliance with records
scheduling requirements in the Federal Records Act and the E-Government Act of
2002 (based on agency self-assessments carried out in September 2009 and analysis of
other data )
6.1
Records
Management
Across the
Gov't
Update: We have issued the following reports:
Records Management Self Assessment 2009 Reportpublished April 2010
Records Management Self Assessment 2010 Reportpublished March 2011
Records Management Self Assessment 2011 Report published May 2012
Preserving the Past to Protect the Future, 2011 Performance and Accountability
Report, November 2011.
Implemented
and ongoing
58
Continue to provide electronic records management guidance and best practices for
Federal agencies in order to assist them in addressing identified deficiencies
6.1
Records
Management
Across the
Gov't
Update: In Fiscal Year 2010, NARA issued:
Advice on implementing records management requirements of Open
Government Directive (OMB M-10-06)
NWM 04.2010.
Revised Federal records management regulations.
The Records Control Schedule repository provides access to scanned versions
of records schedules, or Standard Forms 115, Request for Records Disposition
Authority, developed by Federal agencies and approved by the Archivist of
the United States.
NARA Bulletin 2010-03 Flexible Scheduling. This bulletin announced
Frequently Asked Questions for additional guidance to agencies that want to
create flexible schedules.
Records Management Self - Assessment 2009 Final Report to determine how
effective Federal agencies are in meeting the statutory and regulatory
requirements for records management during Fiscal Year 2009.
Guidance Concerning Notifications for Previously Scheduled Permanent
Records to address the use of notifications when an agency implements
electronic recordkeeping for records covered by a previously approved
permanent schedule item. This bulletin also provides guidance to agencies
concerning the disposal of original hard copy records that have been
converted to an electronic format (e.g., by scanning).
Frequently Asked Questions About Media Neutral Schedule Items.
In Fiscal Year 2011, NARA issued:
Inspection report on Management of Hard Copy Mapping Products in the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency presenting the findings and
recommendations of NARA's inspection of the National Geospatial-
Intelligence Agency that was conducted earlier this year on the transfer of
permanent hard copy map products to the physical and legal custody of the
National Archives.
NARA Bulletin 2011-04, Guidance on Managing Mixed-media Files providing
guidance to agencies who frequently manage files with records created or
received in more than one type of medium.
Implemented
and ongoing
54
Telework Frequently Asked Questions reiterating basic records management
guidance from the NARA to agencies and their employees that applies to
Federal records in a telework environment.
Records Management Self-Assessment Report 2010 to determine how
effective Federal agencies are in meeting the statutory and regulatory
requirements for records management during Fiscal Year 2010.
59
Provide guidance to agency heads regarding the recordkeeping impacts of the use of
Web 2.0 technologies
6.1
Records
Management
Across the
Gov't
Update: In the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2010, NARA issued two guidance
products related to Web 2.0 technologies:
NARA's Report on Federal Web 2.0 Use and Record Value. This web study
observed how agencies are using web 2.0 tools to conduct business and
identifies characteristics that may affect the value of information created.
Guidance on Managing Records in Web 2.0/Social Media Platforms. This
bulletin provides guidance on managing records produced when Federal
agencies use web 2.0/social media platforms for Federal business.
In 2011, NARA sponsored the
American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory
Council Collaboration & Transformation (C&T) Shared Interest Group (SIG) Best
Practices Study of Social Media Records Policies and hosted a government-wide panel
discussion of study participants.
In 2012, NARA is developing social media capture best practice guidance as directed
by the Archivist in response to
GAO 11-605: Federal Agencies Need Policies and
Procedures for Managing and Protecting Information They Access and Disseminate.
Implemented
and ongoing
60
Provide guidance to agency heads regarding the recordkeeping impacts of Federal use
of cloud computing solutions
6.1
Records
Management
Across the
Gov't
Update: In the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2010, NARA issued
Guidance on
Managing Records in Cloud Computing Environments. This bulletin addresses
records management considerations in cloud computing environments and is a
formal articulation of NARA's view of agencies' records management responsibilities.
Implemented
61
Take a leadership role in developing cost effective IT solutions to meet the electronic
records management challenges of Federal agencies today
6.1
Records
Management
Across the
Gov't
Update: In October 2010, NARA sponsored the first joint meeting between the CIO
Council and the Federal Records Council.
Implemented
and ongoing
62
Create annual Archivist Achievement Awards in Records Management to recognize
agencies that demonstrate innovation and contribute towards the principles of Open
Government
6.1
Records
Management
Across the
Gov't
Update: NARA continues to recognize agency achievement in records management
with the annual Archivist Achievement Awards in Records Management. One factor
that goes in consideration for these awards are agencies that demonstrate innovation
towards the principles of open government in their records management activities.
Implemented
and ongoing
63 Investigate the possibility of developing a FOIA Dashboard 6.2 FOIA - OGIS
Update: OGIS had initially talked with several agencies including the Department of
Justice about developing a FOIA dashboard. DOJ moved ahead on its own with an
update of its web site to produce FOIA.gov, which provides access to agencies’
Annual FOIA Report data. During this time, NARA has worked in partnership with
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Commerce to
build a multi-agency “FOIA Module.” The Module will allow the public to make
Implemented
and ongoing
55
FOIA requests at one portal; automate FOIA processing and reporting; and store and
provide access to FOIA requests and agency responses in a virtual repository. The
two efforts are complementary.
64
Explore other strategies for making information about the FOIA process available to
the public and across the Federal government (e.g. access to raw datasets and
providing a forum for the public's participation on relevant issues)
6.2 FOIA - OGIS
Update: See above update for Task #63.
Implemented
and ongoing
65
Expand current ERA records management capabilities to 25 Federal agencies in
FY2010
6.3
Electronic
Records
Archives
(ERA)
Update:
The Electronic Records Archives (ERA) records management capabilities
were expanded to 25 Federal agencies by the end of Fiscal year 2010.
Implemented
66
NARA will assume a leadership role in ensuring that millions of classified records are
declassified
6.4
National
Declassificati
on Center
Update:
In coordinating and leading inter agency teams established to provide NDC-
directed quality assurance equity identification and review on prioritized record
series, NDC is successfully working with other government agency partners to resolve
identified equities, protect only the most sensitive information, declassify and
prepare for release a projected 80% of the backlog classified records held at NARA by
the 31 December 2013 deadline.
Implemented
and ongoing
67
NDC will accelerate the processing of historically valuable classified records in which
more than one agency has an interest
6.4
National
Declassificati
on Center
Update: In fine tuning the processes and risk management strategy introduced
during the previous two years, and drastically streamlining data capture, NDC is
successfully working with other government agency partners to adjudicate multi-
equity documents, while protecting the most sensitive information. Series within the
backlog are prioritized for NDC processing based on researcher requests, the
significance of the historical topic, and the quality of the earlier review. In addition
to our routine high volume processing efforts aimed at retiring the backlog by the
mandated due date, we coordinated referral and declassification processing for two
additional special collections in 2011: backlog records related to the construction of
the Berlin Wall and the full Pentagon Papers. In 2012, we are processing backlog
records supporting an additional three topical collections: those related to the Katyn
Atrocities, those with information related to POW/MIA concerns, and those related
to the Cuban Missile Crises.
In addition to improving the review and release process for series of historical records
in the backlog, the NDC has improved processes for specific documents requested
under FOIA and the MDR provision of E.O. 13526. The new processes have led to
better tracking of requests and faster referral to the equity-holding agencies.
Implemented
and ongoing
68
NDC will develop common processes among agencies (promote effective,
transparent, and standard process, training, and quality assurance measures for
declassifying documents)
6.4
National
Declassificati
on Center
Update: In working with our other government agency partners, we are leveraging
their expertise in their agency-specific sensitive equity with our own in records
management, overall national security information knowledge, and declassification
processing as we develop a series of courses aimed at establishing a baseline of review
capability and quality common across government. In 2011 we hosted a four-day
equity training conference attended by 300 declassification reviewers representing 25
agencies. We are on track for the development of a series of eight courses that would
be available government wide.
Implemented
and ongoing
69
Federal Register 2.0 - Replace the aging print-centric Federal Register publication
6.5
Federal
56
system with a modern Web 2.0 legal information platform Register
Update: The proposed action has been largely accomplished with the final migration
of all major Federal Register publications to the XML-based Federal Digital System
(FDsys), and the development of FederalRegister.gov (Federal Register 2.0).
FederalRegister.gov will be presented to the Administrative Committee of the Federal
Register for adoption as an official edition under a streamlined procedure (pending
completion of notice and comment rulemaking). GPO continues to work on a
composition replacement system for modernized printing of Federal Register
publications that are still required by law to appear in printed form.
Implemented
and ongoing
70
Pursue XML conversion of older Federal Register and CFR data in print code format
and develop a digitization strategy for capturing pre-electronic data
6.5
Federal
Register
Update: The proposed action has been completed to the extent practical. CFR data is
available in XML from 1996 to present, and Federal Register data is available in XML
from 2000 to present. GPO’s analysis of 1994-1999 Federal Register print files
indicates that documents from that era contain too many coding errors to be
converted to XML in a cost-efficient and reliable manner. Converted XML versions
would, in many cases, not be true copies of the original printed documents. The OFR
determined that distribution of corrupted XML files would not be consistent with our
statutory obligation to disseminate complete and authentic editions of the Federal
Register. To present a complete and authentic record, FederalRegister.gov displays
XML summaries and metadata for pre-2000 documents, with links to the official PDF
version on FDsys. The OFR and GPO successfully processed scanned editions of the
1951 through 2002 U.S. Statutes at Large for posting on FDsys.gov. Congressional
approval is required for GPO to pursue digitization of pre-electronic Federal Register
and CFR material. We are engaged in public outreach to build public support for
digitized editions of the Federal Register and CFR.
Implemented
and ongoing