I had promised to post a summary of off-List responses I received on whether or not institutions other than NARA allowed people to renew their cards slightly in advance of expiration. Now that the issue has wrapped up, I thought I'd let you all know that I did not hear privately from any institution that follows a policy such as NARA's. My thanks to those of you who wrote me privately to provide me your perspectives on your dealings with NARA on this and on related issues. I would encourage you to let NARA know about some of these issues. You may not always get satisfaction but I think NARA, as is the case with any agency, benefits from hearing from its customers. Due to my raising the card issue last week, NARA now states on its website that it does not allow renewal of researcher i.d. cards prior to expiration -- due to security reasons. See http://www.archives.gov/research/start/researcher-card.html I guess I've been a Fed for too long, I have a tendency to ask an awful lot of questions rather than to accept some things. I just don't see why security concerns would affect my ability to renew on Thursday a card that expired Friday. Especially since renewal would appear to be a quick and uncomplicated process. (What could change in terms of security in the course of one day? Beats me.) But I'm not going to pursue that issue, there's no way I can make up the lost time from last week, anyway. At least I was able to persuade NARA to post a public notice about a renewal policy which, as I pointed out, seems counterintuitive. So I thank NARA for doing that, anyway. My thanks also to those of you who sent me nice notes yesterday about my success in getting the NARA notice up. Keep asking questions, everyone, you know I will, LOL!! (The rarely passive) Maarja 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]>