Archivist of the United States

“ Indeed, in 1955, in testimony pertaining to this proposed legislation, the Archivist of the United States confirmed:
"The papers of the Presidents have always been considered to be their personal property, both during their incumbency and afterward. ”

“ The Executive Branch here is seeking access to records belonging to, and in the custody of, the Federal Government itself, not only in order to investigate whether those records were handled in an unlawful manner but also, as the National Security Division explained, to "conduct an assessment of the potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported and take any necessary remedial steps." These reviews will be conducted by current government personnel who, like the archival officials in Nixon v. GSA, are "sensitive to executive concerns." ”

“ Even assuming for the sake of argument that a former President may under some circumstances make such a "protective assertion of executive privilege" to preclude the Archivist from complying with a disclosure otherwise prescribed by 44 U.S.C. § 2205 (2) , there is no predicate for such a "protective" assertion here, where there is no realistic basis that the requested delay would result in a viable assertion of executive privilege against the incumbent President that would prevent disclosure of records for the purposes of the reviews described above. ”

“ When the Archivist considers it to be in the public interest, the Archivist may solicit and accept gifts or bequests of money or other property for the purpose of maintaining, operating, protecting, or improving a Presidential archival depository. ”

“ All the principal nations of Europe, and even the Dominion of Canada, have an archivist, or custodian of manuscripts, responsible for keeping, indexing, and increasing these collections, whose importance as original documents illustrating the history and biography of the nation can hardly be overrated. ”

“ The National Archives is another such human service in our governmental set-up. It was personal appreciation for Brumidi on the part of a group of employees of the National Archives that led to the finding of so many public documents vital to this study. ”

“ SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR THE FORT DEARBORN MASSACRE
The history of lost manuscripts, even in so new a country as the United States, contains not only much of interest to the curious, but much of profit to the serious, who are genuinely interested in the work of preserving the records of the past. Various have the fortunes of these precious documents been. Some have been used by frugal housewives to cover jelly glasses or pack eggs, others have gone to feed the paper mill or the furnace ”

“ State organs, groups, enterprises, public institutions, and other organizations that are required to create archives in accordance with the regulations of the state shall establish an accountability system for archival work and improve their archives management system in accordance with the law. ”

“ Before a property within the jurisdiction of the certified local government may be considered by the State to be nominated to the Secretary for inclusion on the National Register, the State Historic Preservation Officer shall notify the owner, the applicable chief local elected official, and the local historic preservation commission. The commission, after reasonable opportunity for public comment, shall prepare a report as to whether or not such property, in its opinion, meets the criteria of the National Register. ”

“ An annotated bibliography of separately published finding aids (through c. 1990) to collections of unpublished materials (including archives and collections of maps, photographs, oral histories, and films) held in repositories in the United States. Unfortunately, coverage excludes journal articles, exhibition catalogs, accession reports, discussions of individual documents, dissertations, dictionary catalogs (except those incorporating unpublished materials) , and “indexes to large collections or bodies of records.” ”

“ Each Federal agency shall initiate measures to assure that where, as a result of Federal action or assistance carried out by such agency, an historic property is to be substantially altered or demolished, timely steps are taken to make or have made appropriate records, and that such records then be deposited, in accordance with section 101 (a) , in the Library of Congress or with such other appropriate agency as may be designated by the Secretary, for future use and reference. ”

“ After serving his native city as secretary and archivist, he became archivist to the national archives in Paris in 1866, and later librarian to the faculty of law. In 1890 he was appointed professor of civil and canon law at the ecole des chartes. ”

“ A central office, in which papers from all departments of the Government are lodged after they have passed out of current use, examined, classified, and filed by a staff familiar with their contents, need only be brought into use to become indispensably serviceable in the carrying on of public business; but in addition, the archivist, knowing the contents of the documents in his custody, is able to direct and help in a manner that can not otherwise be done, that portion of the public interested in the information contained in the Government archives. ”

“ It may have happened that other documents pertaining to it were lost or destroyed, during the rough usage to which the archives were exposed at the conquest of California.
2. We do not, however, rest on the expediente alone. The proof establishes, beyond a reasonable doubt, the fact that a final grant was issued. It is true, the archives, as now found in the surveyor-general's office, do not show this fact; and we admit that, in the absence of such proof, nothing short of the most satisfactory and convincing evidence should be deemed sufficient to establish the existence and loss of the paper. ”

“ Not only does information become more pervasive through multiple distribution systems, but—thanks to us—it becomes more persistent. That is to say, over the past century and a half, historians and archivists have done an excellent job in demonstrating the value of historical records of all sorts. We have created the age of the archives—the ways and means to save more stuff and for longer periods of time. ”

“ If the past teaches us anything, it is that challenges persist. A century ago, J. Franklin Jameson and the American Historical Association were crying out for the establishment of a National Archives, for we were losing our national memory. ”

“ Entities and individuals that have transferred, donated, or deposited archival records to archival repositories may enjoy priority in the use of said archival records and may propose restrictions of use as to the parts that are not suitable for public access. ”

“ These, with the legislature itself, are the departments of government in which our archives originate.
Archives we have defined as the records, the business papers, of the province having a permanent value. All archives need not be of historical value in the narrow sense. Public documents may have a business or record value apart from history, yet it would be hard to say that any given document might not be found useful in some way in connection with history. The main value of a document is as an evidence of truth. ”

“ Historical investigators of recognized standing are permitted to have access to the War Department records under certain conditions, but the Revolutionary War records have become so worn and dilapidated by reason of lapse of time and long use thereof that access thereto is permitted only under exceptional circumstances. ”

“ The people's governments at all levels shall enhance the archival work, incorporate the cause of archives into national economic and social development plans, finance the cause of archives with government budgets, and ensure that the development of the cause of archives is compatible with the development of national economy and society. ”

“ The bulk of this massive accumulation of documents relates to administrative matters, but there is considerable material on individuals that is too rarely explored by literary biographers. Although lacking the tradition of important discoveries made in the Public Record Office and thus not as well known to literary researchers, the National Archives repositories are an obligatory stop for biographers of writers associated with the federal government, whether by election, through employment, or under surveillance. ”

“ It does not take much of a prophet to foresee a radical development in some of our American library schools within a very few years. When for example, the Columbia Library school was starting, manuscripts were so few in this country that their science and economy was a negligible element in instruction—and as for archives, we had plenty of documents but the very name archive, with what it connotes, was foreign and almost unknown in America. Now there are many well recognized archives and some of our collections of ancient manuscripts are numbered by the thousands. ”

“ Certainly if you look at the national network of archives—the records at the federal, state, local and academic levels—you would count well into the billions. Electronic records are only going to blow the top off. ”

“ Students of our own regional history will be astonished to find what a wealth of material is preserved in the Canadian archives, particularly in the archives of the Archbishopric of Quebec, that bears directly upon the history of Oregon and Washington. It will be particularly regretted, by students in these states, that the Archives of British Columbia located in the nearby city of Victoria could not have been adequately listed. ”

“ Original research amongst the legal and other documents preserved in the Public Record Office, and similar depositories of ancient archives is a pursuit which our friends politely assume ‘must be very interesting,’ chiefly because they cannot believe that any one would undertake so dull an occupation if it were not interesting. ”

“ When the Archivist provides notice to the incumbent and former Presidents of his intent to disclose Presidential records pursuant to section 1270.46 of the NARA regulations, the Archivist, using any guidelines provided by the incumbent and former Presidents, shall identify any specific materials, the disclosure of which he believes may raise a substantial question of executive privilege. ”

“ The AHA had been focused on federal government records since its founding in 1884, and for decades, the association and in particular J. Franklin Jameson, who at the time was with Department of History and Political Science at Johns Hopkins, badgered and cajoled and argued for some system and order to be created to preserve federal records and make them accessible to the citizenry.
Jameson wasn’t the first advocate, though perhaps, he was the most ardent. The history of the idea of a national archives is as old as the nation itself. ”

“ The archives, consisting of papers tied up in loose bundles, had long been the stamping ground of literary thieves. I put at the head of the library Thomas Lynch Montgomery, a trained librarian, who had been in charge of the Wagner Institute in Philadelphia, a member of a family of high social standing and a man of great efficiency. I likewise had arrangements made to have the archives that remained and all of the papers of the departments, prior to a certain early date, repaired, chronologically arranged, bound into volumes and put in the library. ”

“ The state encourages and supports archives-related scientific research and technological innovation, promotes the transfer and application of scientific and technological achievements in the collection, arrangement, preservation, and use of archives, and advances archives-related scientific and technological progress. ”

“ The writing of history must be based upon original research and authentic record, but it can no more be directly constructed by the piecing together of bits of original research than by the mere reprinting together of state documents. Individual research furnishes us, as it were, with the private documents and intimate records without which the public archives are incomplete and unintelligible. But by themselves these are wholly out of perspective. It is the consolation of those who produce them to make them so. ”