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



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