Washington, D.C.
October 18-20, 1995
Governor John Carlin, Archivist of the United States
National Archives and Record Administration
I am genuinely pleased to be asked to address the Association of Research Libraries, and I say that knowing that not everybody in the scholarly community jumped with joy when I became Archivist of the United States. My detractors, who know that I have dairy experience, question whether milking cows is adequate preparation for managing archives. They seem to doubt even the relevance of my experience as a state governor, a business executive, and a university professor, and they may be right. After four and a half months on the job, particularly in the current congressional climate, I’m not sure there’s any adequate preparation for being Archivist of the United States.
I assume that your invitation means you are giving me the benefit of the doubt, and I’m grateful for that, because I really want to talk about the new directions we’re taking at the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA).
First, let me welcome you to the NARA and to this building of which we are, of course, very proud. Officially it’s called the National Archives at College Park, but we fondly refer to it as “Archives II” to distinguish it from the first National Archives building, on Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington.
The building you are in is a state-of-the-art facility, which we opened in 1994, and we will finish moving into in 1996. It rises six stories and covers 1.7 million square feet. It can store about two million cubic feet of records, contains 520 miles of high-density mobile shelving, and houses nine sophisticated preservation and conservation laboratories. We have already moved 1,133 tractor-trailer truck loads of material into this facility.
If you are doing research, this building offers several nice amenities, including outlets at the reading stations in the research rooms for laptop computers. We felt it was important that the building be comfortable and open to light to show the public that the National Archives is not just a musty mausoleum for hiding away obsolete documents.
Of course, the members of the Association of Research Libraries already know that. You know that we are involved with you in the noble business of advancing human knowledge. You know that we share with you a responsibility for maintaining the essential resources for a wide range of active scholarship. In fact, you share some specific responsibilities with us. Your libraries also provide access to archival materials and to government documents, along with your great collections of books and other research resources.
However, there is something else we may have in common that is far less pleasant to talk about. It is something that, at least at NARA, is going to require major changes. Let me explain. The building we are in puts a bright and prosperous face on the National Archives and Records Administration, but this building houses only a portion of the more than four billion pages of textual records in our custody. Although we also have special storage conditions here for motion pictures, still pictures, maps, electronic records, and other non-textual materials, there are many more records in our other facilities that lack this special care and attention.
This building is but one of some 33 facilities in which we operate nationwide. Among them are 12 regional archives, 14 records centers and nine presidential libraries. I just reviewed a major study that says that almost all of these buildings, unlike this one, need substantial renovation. That includes the original Archives building downtown. I’m talking about millions of dollars for repairs, which is extremely hard to find in the reduced Federal budgets that are likely to be a fact of life for the next several years.
Our space report says that within a decade we are likely to be spending 60 percent of our budget — 60 percent of our annual budget — on nothing but the cost of occupying and maintaining space. Forty-five percent of our budget goes for that already, and we can’t afford to continue that way, for the flip side of that is we will have to decrease our budget for personnel and programs from 55 to 40 percent. To say the least, that is unsatisfactory.
The fact is that, with so much of our funding going into space, we don’t have sufficient personnel now to provide adequate guidance to government agencies about keeping the records they are supposed to keep. We wouldn’t have the capacity to process all the records that should come to NARA, if they did come to us. We don’t have adequate resources to preserve all the records we already have, and although we have managed to begin providing electronic access to some of our materials, overall we are struggling to maintain even basic reference services. Does this sound familiar to you? Declining budgets, rising costs, increased demands; hard choices, to say the least.
I suspect that we are all in this together, but for NARA that’s not all. Our problem is compounded by the fact that we also face huge increases in the quantity of records that federal agencies are producing, including new kinds of records.
For example, I recently received another report that says that federal science programs are generating vast quantities of computer data that require preservation, but NARA currently spends less on archiving electronic records for the entire Federal government than most science agencies spend on just their own individual data centers. That means, as the report says, “it is obvious that NARA will be unable to take custody of a vast majority of these scientific data sets.”
In short, we are not just failing to keep up with electronic records; we cannot. We cannot, unless we change. NARA will not be able to keep up with the federal records for which we have responsibility, nor be able to persuade Congress to appropriate the funds to help us keep up, unless we change the way we operate.
That change will be in part technological. The same computer technologies that are generating all the new records that worry us also are opening up new possibilities for controlling records, storing them in less space, preserving them electronically, and providing nationwide access to them.
Also, change at NARA may have to be structural. Already we work with affiliated archives, which preserve certain federal records by agreement with us. Other systems of distributive responsibility may also have to be a part of the plan, in which NARA wouldn’t try to take custody of all the important federal records. NARA might help the agencies that create the records take care of them, while we ensure access to them. That is what the science report I cited recommends.
Right now we don’t know exactly what will work. We must experiment, take risks, and test several options, but there is something more fundamental that we are doing first. We are rethinking our role, our mission. We are trying to clarify the kind of service the nation needs most from the National Archives and Records Administration. Then we will find the most effective and affordable ways to provide it.
I have assembled a leadership team at NARA which is working with me now on the development of strategic directions. Let me share with you what we have concluded so far about how to envision NARA, its particular responsibilities, and its future role.
The National Archives is not a dusty hoard of ancient history. It is a public trust on which our democracy depends. It enables people to inspect for themselves the record of what the Federal government has done. It enables officials and agencies to review their actions, and it helps citizens hold them accountable. It ensures continuing access to essential evidence that documents the rights of American citizens, the actions of federal officials, and our national experience.
Congress has defined our duties in various public laws, but our overall mission can be expressed in a single statement of intent. This statement must and will guide everything we do. NARA’s mission is to ensure — for the Citizen and the Public Servant, for the President and the Congress and the Courts — ready access to essential evidence.
Now, what do those words mean? The words, "the President and the Congress and the Courts," mean that we help all three branches of the Federal government—executive, legislative and judicial—to document themselves and use such documentation. The words, "the Citizen and the Public Servant," mean that we have equal responsibilities to help people who work in federal agencies and citizens at large outside the government to find the evidence they need. The words, "ready access," mean that we must work hard to make it easy for everyone to find relevant evidence. And the words, "essential evidence," do not just refer to records that are evidentiary in the technical, archival sense, but to materials that document citizens’ rights, identities, and entitlements; government activities for which officials are accountable; and historical developments that Americans, as a people, need to evaluate.
Again, NARA must ensure — for the Citizen and the Public Servant, for the President and the Congress and the Courts — ready access to essential evidence.
What is required of us to do that? Five things seem critical. One, NARA must define what evidence is essential. Two, we must ensure that government creates such evidence. Three, we must make it easy for users to get access to that evidence, regardless of where it is or where they are, for as long as that evidence is needed. Four, we must find technologies, techniques, and partnerships worldwide that can help improve our service and help hold down our costs. And five, we must enable our staff continuously to expand their capabilities to make the changes necessary to realize our vision.
Let me try to put all this into a simple picture. What I’m describing may be a long time coming, but we will be working toward the day when any citizen anywhere, and anyone in federal service in any branch, will be able quickly to locate evidence that will help him or her assert a personal right, evaluate a federal activity, or trace a national historical development.
I grant you that this leaves open a lot of questions. Part of the process of getting where we need to go is to clarify our concepts and sharpen our definitions as we move along. I believe in refining ideas by applying them to real problems case by case, but we also must have a sense of overall direction, which we are developing along the lines I have just described. Come back to visit us again this time next year, and I will be able to tell you much more.
I am aware that the Association of Research Libraries is a concerned participant in discussions about the dissemination of government information, and I understand that your able Washington staff is monitoring legislation pertaining to the Government Printing Office, the Federal Depository Library Program, the Library of Congress, the development of Internet access to government information, and related matters.
I know you were helpful last in securing the reauthorization of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, a grant-making program that we administer here at NARA. I hope that we can also share with you an interest in our efforts at NARA during the coming months as we work out our plans, identify the services we can best provide, and restructure ourselves to provide them effectively and efficiently.
We do have common philosophical interests. Your institutions provide resources on which intellectual inquiry and cultural achievement depend. NARA, too, will continue to provide essential research opportunities, but we also share with you a practical interest. We, too, must find ways to squeeze more out of available resources, enter new partnerships to avoid duplication of effort, jointly develop better tools and techniques, move decisively into the electronic era, and find ways to strengthen our case in the competition for resources.
My responsibility now is to see that NARA survives today’s widespread budget cutting, overcomes some bad press and hard knocks it has taken in recent years, provides needed services cost-effectively, and gets recognized as the national treasure it truly is. Whatever we must change to do that, we will.
If you have any questions, I will address them now.
VOICE: What you have to do here is obviously overwhelming and impossible. How are you going to set priorities?
GOV. CARLIN: You’re not the first person to tell me what I’m trying to do is impossible, but I’m not going to let you discourage me any more than the other folks who have said it.
The first thing we are doing here is changing the culture of the agency from a very play-it-careful, never-communicate, certainly-don’t-work-as-a-team approach to being risk takers and a total team agency-wide. Also, we want to make communication automatic, a natural part of our day, as well as loyalty to the mission of the agency, rather than loyalty to a small task of a particular branch. That is what I am focusing on first, because, unless the cultural changes take place, the best of plans will never be implemented under the old culture. So that is the first step. Also, our process will involve literally everyone at NARA, for I want the inputs of technicians and people at the GS-3 or -4 level just as much as 13s, 14s and SESs. That doesn’t answer your question directly, and I know it. But as I said, come back next year; I’ll have more to say.
VOICE: Did you say what kind of culture you are trying to develop?
GOV. CARLIN: One that maximizes the efficiency of employees. For example, today we have people making decisions that are checked and rechecked by as many as 12 other people before a final decision comes to my desk. We cannot tolerate that kind of inefficiency any more. Somebody has to accept responsibility. We are going to hold employees accountable for doing the job, rather than having the system that currently exists, in which nobody is accountable because there is always somebody else to pass things through.
For instance, we have appraisal processes that take two or three years that go on and on. By the time these matters get to my desk, nobody feels liability for the decisions. That’s going to be stopped, and that requires a change in culture so that people accept responsibility, and we allow them to make mistakes. If we make mistakes, we learn from the mistakes and go on. In the current culture no one wants to make a mistake, because it’s bad; therefore, no one makes suggestions, and there is no creative thinking.
I thank you very much for this opportunity. Again, welcome to the National Archives. We seriously look forward to working with you as partners in a variety of ways.
The one thing I would say in closing, as part of our process of evolving a whole new set of strategic directions is: we certainly intend to reach out beyond those who work at NARA. So if you’re interested in participating, then we certainly will be in touch with your leadership. We will welcome your ideas and suggestions and active involvement as we proceed to do the impossible, and we will do it. Thank you, and have a good day.