Interesting question, Russell. I'm glad to hear you all discussed the researcher thread yesterday. I'd say it isn't necessarily an "either or." Nor is it necesarily a question of how NARA weights matters related to records as opposed to patron services. I think NARA could and should improve its policies. But there are going to be some monetary limits. It simply doesn't have the money to spend as much on records or on patron services as it would like. Both sides are going to be shortchanged to some degree. All the more reason to think through policies more carefully. 1. RESTRICTON: Some restriction of records is unavoidable and necessarily. However, researchers have to have faith in the process. NARA is supposed to keep that in mind. External agents may or may not be mindful of that. I noticed in the Weinstein/Leonard briefing on Wednesday that NARA asserted a need to improve resolution of disputes between NARA and agencies as to what to release or restrict. I'm glad they noted that. How well that will play out, I don't know. As I keep saying, people can be the strongest or weakest link, there's no way to guarantee that problems won't occur. Hence the need for people to keep a close eye on things -- including people in SAA. We shouldn't just sit back after the Wednesday briefing and say, ok, that's taken care of. It's jut the start and no one knows how it will play out. Users come in to the picture when a person or governmental entity unnecessarily misleads or deceives them. (I'm not talking about secret stuff discussed in agency records, I'm talking simply about what you tell researchers about what is being done in handling records.) The external players who create the records may focus so narrowly on their own interests that they can lose sight of NARA's institutional need to maintain credibility with all stakeholders. Perhaps some of those players become so accustomed to wielding power, they become blinded to the fact that members of the public, while seemingly weak in terms of clout, still deserve to be treated with respect and honor. 2. PATRON SERVICES--SETTING POLICY AND EXPLAINING RULES: Anyone who has dealt with pushy or aggressive researchers (the Frenchwoman and the map!!) know that you need to have rules and regulations in place to protect the records, preserve security and a maintain a reasonable amount of order. Hey, I may have griped yesterday, but my gripe in the research room was centered on "ya gotta let people know before they take time to come in here." Not, "bend the rules for me." The problem lies in that fact that the people enforcing those rules usually do not set the policy. As I found yesterday, they say what they are told to say, usually without a mitigating comment, such as, "yeah, I know it's hard to understand and I appreciate why it is inconvenient, but that's the policy. Here's the underlying reason blah blah blah." They deal with lots and lots of researchers, running them through the i.d. process. Researchers have varying degrees of reasonableness, and I would guess staff mostly find it easiest to give rote responses which come down to "you can't do that." The biggest problem lies in the fact that the people who set the policies may not always avail themselves of chances to see how that plays out down in the trenches. I doubt Allen Weinstein would look at an i.d. that expired the next day and tell me, "I can't renew that today. You need to come back tomorrow," as I was told. But I could be wrong, LOL. I do think a lot of researcher issues deserve a closer look from higher level management. 3. PATRON SERVICES--QUALITY OF SERVICE: Not all the problems are due to poorly thought out policies. NARA also currently is facing a huge "brain drain" due to demographics. Some of the people I've talked to believe that the golden days of researcher service, such as they were, peaked some time ago and now are waning. Many specialist types, historian-archivists with deep contextual knowledge, are retiring or about to retire. I know one such person. When that person retires, there will be no one left who could do that job. There simply will be a huge knowledge gap in that field within NARA. Sometime within the last 5 or 10 years, I heard of a comment within NARA, "The newer researchers won't realize the quality of reference service has changed. They won't have experienced the best days and won't know what they are missing." Many federal agencies and think thanks have grappled with the brain drain and the decline in the number of people willing to take government jobs. Think Paul Volcker and the commissions he has headed, for example. Also check out what the Partnership for Public Service says about the brain drain at http://www.ourpublicservice.org/research/research_list_all.htm . "The coming wave of baby boomer retirements, combined with other turnover, threatens to dramatically diminish the federal government's effectiveness in meeting urgent public needs." NARA is not immune to this. Then there is the question of money. Most civil agencies face very tight budgets nowadays. Much of an agency's budget usually goes into pay/compensation/benefits for employees. You can't expect good quality employees to work for peanuts, they'll pick up and leave for greener pastures. So compensation has to be resonable and market based. What is left over to spend on mission must be carefully apportioned. Researchers are clamoring for digitization of paper records. That takes money. This is less a problem for libraries than it is for archives, most people still are used to reading hard copy books. For every dollar a Federal manager decides to spend, he has to decide what other project he should take away from. These are our tax dollars at work and I think civil agency budgets will remain tight for the forseeable future. All in all, NARA faces huge challenges, not just in how to handle government secrecy, accountability, etc., but even in mundane areas such as resources. All the more reason for it to think through and communicate its policies better than it has, at least with issues such as researcher cards. That's my take on the matter, for what it's worth! Maarja -----Original Message----- From: Russell D. James <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 10:15:48 -0500 Subject: Users v. Records, was RE: NARA was Re: Request for off list responses on research card policies I want to delve further into this topic..... I am a library student on the archives/RM track at Louisiana State University. I am part of an informal book club of library students and we actually discussed this thread last night. I made the following observation and am interested in how you all feel: As far as I know the primary mission of NARA is to collect, maintain, protect, and preserve the official records of the business of government of the United States. If that is the case, then the records seem to have primacy in fulfilling the mission of NARA. If NARA denies access to some records or has rules that are unusually harsh on users of NARA facilities, then does that mean that NARA has a mission that puts records before users? Is this right or wrong? The impetus for this was a discussion in our book group of an essay talking about librarians (and presumably archivists) placing more importance on user services than on other things (such as records protection). Members of our book club have seen in some places where access to the services and records is more important than anything else. We discussed how this seems a bit lop-sided. Russell D. James, M.A. MLIS student Louisiana State University [log in to unmask] Professional portfolio http://www.geocities.com/russelldjames A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org. For the terms of participation, please refer to http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]> A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org. For the terms of participation, please refer to http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>