Oh, I agree if you're looking for this type of thing the archive is the place to go...but I think most people in the general public would go to a library and see what someone has published on the subject rather than scout out the archive where the info might be and remember, lots of folks live outside a travelable area to an archive....:) and different archives, that would be state archive's have different things in them...for instance those state archives in the East have things about the East in them or what ever state they are in....not to mention I tried reading the Warren Report and I gotta tell you, needed lots of coffee for that....:) But while we're on this subject...the other thing I find about history and whether books or documentaries is: they seem to always go over the same ground...i.e. I mean how many times can you describe Washington Crossing the Delaware....I'm not saying he's not imporant in history....:) but even with a new twist...the words George Washington in a title has a tendency to turn me away.... Same with history of Battles...and historians sometimes only give you the upper crust of things...i.e. like the Battle of Brandywine, not sure there is any real historical work on that...but there was a minor Battle in that Battle called Paoli...you never hear those mentioned in any historical works of late...I think the History Channel had a program on the Rev Battles or George Washington and the name Brandywine was said, but never gave any details about it... Maybe that's because of just a real lack of historical original records to work with for that time period...I don't know.... You never see any *birds eye* view of subjects...let's say an indepth book on or information on the Battle of Brandywine for instances...or say about Washington's Guard unit...Ok, I'd read that one....:) and the Minutemen, gee that concept goes back to the revolution as well...you don't see anything about those... Seems like so many things are just becoming sound bites of late...and when I say in depth, I mean every available morsel of information that may be anywhere about it....:) Charlotte ----Original Message Follows---- From: [log in to unmask] Reply-To: [log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [ARCHIVES] LONG: value of government records [was public ignorance of archivists] Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 12:21:58 -0400 Charlotte writes of the general public's lack of interest in government records: "I think most of us think of a state archive as the repository for old 'government' documents, not necessarily anything that would be of interest to them." My experience lies in the area of Federal rather than state archives. I have an interest in what Federal records contain not only as an historian and former archivist, but also as a citizen. Here's how that plays out for me. How many other people react this way? I don't know, I don't claim to speak for anyone but myself. This is just how I see the importance of archival records as opposed to other sources of information. I put this together during my lunch break. But if some of you are not interested in my lengthy musings on the value of government records, stop right here and go ahead and delete this, I won't mind, LOL. 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]>