Hi, Paul (and List)!

Thanks so much for the good, up to date explanation of in-house 
training at NARA.  I too benefited from what you correctly refer to as 
the Career Intern Development System (CIDS).  This program, which 
included two year "rotational" training assignments through various 
NARA divisions, started in the 1970s, if I understand correctly.  I 
seem to remember CIDS rotations as being a new concept when I first 
joined NARA in December 1976.

Perhaps because I was an employee of the Office of Presidential 
Libraries, I actually got to do one training rotational assignment 
outside NARA.  I spent about two months at the Library of Congress's 
Manuscript Division around 1978.  Pretty cool!  I would add that in 
addition to the two-year round of rotational placements (which varied 
 from two weeks to two months) in various units, CIDS also included 
intensive classroom training.  When I started out as an archivist, I 
remember taking a two- week course which was called something like 
Introduction to Archives.   I believe the esteemed Trudy H. Peterson 
(who later served as Acting U.S. Archivist) was the coordinator for the 
sessions I attended!  (She was great, natch.  For a while, Trudy also 
ran the Modern Archives Institute, which my sister Eva attended even 
before becoming a NARA employee.)   Later during the CIDS rotations I 
remember returning to the classroom for a course called something such 
as Archives Management.  This got into some of the issues that Peter 
Kurilecz alluded to (budgets, project planning, etc.)

CIDS trainees typically wrote a paper at the end of their two year 
training periods.  Mine (written around 1979) was on plans to process 
the Nixon tapes.  My essay, which I think was called "The Nixon Tapes 
at the National Archives," famously made into the Kutler v. Wilson 
litigation exhibits.  I remember being startled during my deposition by 
how annoyed Nixon's lawyer seemed about the paper having surfaced.  Yet 
the paper then was out there at NARA's library.  LOL.

My sister, Eva Krusten, also wrote a CIDS paper on the Nixon materials. 
  Her 1986 paper, "NARA and the Law:  The Peculiar Problems of 
Processing the Nixon Materials," was written under the guidance of 
Frank Burke.  Her CIDS classroom training was a little different from 
mine, as NARA experimentally tried for a while a seminar format with 
Dr. Burke.  (As I did, Eva went through a series of rotational 
assignments.)

A few CIDS papers by NARA employees are listed at
http://www.archives.gov/research/electronic-records/staff-bibliography.ht
ml#train .  Back in the early 1990s, many more CIDS papers used to be 
available in the NARA library.  I remember then getting a copy of Paul 
A. Schmidt's CIDS essay, which also dealt with the Nixon records.  I 
just tried searching NARA's Library catalog.
http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/0?path=marcat.txt&id=demo&pass=&OK
=OK

The online catalog list's Eva's paper but not mine or Paul's.  No, I 
don't think Paul and I have been blacklisted; a search for the term 
CIDS only results in 16 entries, far fewer than the total number of 
CIDS papers written.  I doubt the others, like mine, have been 
suppressed :-)

BTW, the full display for Eva's paper notes correctly, "Done in 
connection with the special CIDS Seminar, conducted by Acting 
Archivist, Frank G. Burke, from Mar. 14 through May 30, 1986."  Eva 
really enjoyed working with Dr. BUrke.

See also http://shrinkster.com/g0t which refers to an outside 
bibliography of some of NARA's CIDS essays.

Thanks for posting, Paul, and my best to you and everyone in NWMD!

Maarja
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