Carlin
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Nothing is more important to the writing of history than the existence and availability of archival materials. Our mission at the National Archives and Records Administration is to preserve and make accessible those vital records&emdash;which document the rights of our citizens, the actions of our government, and our national experience&emdash;to all who come to our facilities. We take this role very seriously. The trust placed in
NARA
to safeguard these valuable documents is very important to us, and each and every
NARA
employee works every day to uphold that trust. Simply put, we view security for our holdings as a major challenge&emdash;one that must be met. Despite our best efforts, hundreds of documents and photographs that have been part of our holdings at our facilities around the country are missing. Many of these items have been stolen, although some could simply be misfiled.
In recent years, we have taken new steps to ensure the security of records used by those who work at
NARA
and those who visit our facilities as professional researchers, genealogists, lawyers, journalists, historians, students, government officials, and others. And we are also taking advantage of new technology to devise ways to safeguard our holdings and discourage would-be thieves. Here are some of the things that we have done and are planning to do in the near future:
- Since 1994, research rooms in our
Washington
area facilities have had closed circuit video cameras, and we are now adding these cameras to research rooms in our regional facilities and presidential libraries. These cameras can zoom in and record any suspicious activity.
- In our Pension and Military Service Research Room in
Washington
, we have revised security measures to include seating arrangements that place researchers in view of the surveillance cameras.
- As part of their standing orders, uniformed security officers now patrol research rooms in our
Washington
area facilities during their regular rounds.
- Last year, NARA and our Inspector General began a joint project to monitor auction sites, manuscript dealer catalogs, and Internet sales of documents to determine if there were any federal records being sold. So far, about five hundred documents have been referred to us to be analyzed.
- We have developed a new web site (http://www.archives.gov/about_us/recover_documents/recover_documents.html) to help us recover lost and stolen documents, increase awareness of possible thefts, and discourage sales on online auctions, such as e-Bay. We have also met with officials from e-Bay for assistance in these matters.
- We are nearing completion of a study on marking documents with intrinsic value with a National Archives stamp. The report will be complete in March.
- We have established a pilot project with the University of Maryland to test radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on valuable and vulnerable documents and artifacts.
Throughout the agency, we have provided increased training and more detailed and explicit guidance to our staff and volunteers on the proper handling of documents with researchers and on detecting and monitoring suspicious activity in our research rooms. That training includes proper procedures in pulling and refiling records with the goal of preventing them from being misfiled or lost.
We have also moved staff offices out of stack areas in our facilities. We now require volunteers who work with original records and artifacts to undergo background checks. And we require researchers using original records to have photograph identifications.
We also continue to operate “clean” research rooms, a practice we began in 1986. We limit what materials a researcher can bring into the research room, and our guards check the researchers when they leave to make sure they are taking only their notes or copies of original records.
We believe that these measures, as well as others that are being developed, will deter the theft of records from our holdings. However, theft or attempted theft may still occur. And when it happens, we will take whatever steps are necessary to find the person or persons responsible and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. We will do what is necessary to recover any stolen documents and return them to their proper places in our holdings. In 2002, for example, a former NARA employee was sentenced to 21 months in Federal prison and ordered to pay a $73,000 fine for stealing historical records from NARA. His thefts were discovered by an employee of the National Park Service who alerted NARA staff after seeing some records for sale on e-Bay. Many of those records have been recovered.
The theft of records in our holdings&emdash;records that belong to the people of the
United States
&emdash;undermines the very heart of our mission to preserve and provide ready access to the essential evidence of
America
’s story. We at
NARA
remain on constant guard to ensure that the records entrusted to us&emdash;the records of our democracy&emdash;remain safe and secure, yet open and accessible to all.
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