[House Document 109-156]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HOUSE DOCUMENT NO. 109-156
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
on the
RECORDS OF CONGRESS
(Established under Authority of Public Law 101-509
November 5, 1990)
FOURTH REPORT
December 31, 2006
Compiled by the Office of History and Preservation,
Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives
under the direction of
Karen L. Haas, Chairman (November 19, 2005 - Present)
Jeff Trandahl, Chairman (June - November 17, 2005)
And
Emily J. Reynolds, Vice Chairman
Ex Officio Members
Hon. Karen L. Haas, Chair (Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives,
November 19, 2005 - present, Washington, DC 20515-6601)
Hon. Jeff Trandahl, Former Chair (Clerk, U.S. House of
Representatives, January 6, 1999 - November 18, 2005,
Washington, DC 20515-6601)
Hon. Emily Reynolds, Vice Chair (Secretary, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC 20510-7100)
Hon. Allen Weinstein (Archivist of the United States, National
Archives and Records Administration, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue,
NW, Washington, DC 20408)
Richard A. Baker (Historian, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 205107108)
Robert Remini (Historian, U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC 20515-6612)
Appointed Members
Joseph Cooper (Professor, Department of Political Science, Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218-3688) (House
Democratic Leader)
Paul Gherman (University Librarian, Vanderbilt University, 419 21st
Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37240) (Secretary of the Senate)
Timothy Johnson (Curator of Special Collections & Rare Books,
University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis, MN 55455)
(Speaker of the House)
Alan C. Lowe (Executive Director, Howard H. Baker Jr., Center for
Public Policy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-4006)
(Senate Republican Leader)
Susan Palmer (Professor of History, Department of History, Aurora
University, Aurora, IL 60506) (Clerk of the House)
Guy L. Rocha (Nevada State Archivist, Nevada State Library and
Archives, 100 North Stewart Street, Carson City, NV 89701-4285)
(Senate Democratic Leader)
PREFACE
Six years ago, the Advisory Committee on the Records of
Congress's Third Report identified three trends in the world of
congressional documentation: the increasing volume and complexity
of the records of individual Members of Congress, the conversion of
electronic records in Member and committee offices, and the dispersal
of Members' papers to numerous institutions within each
state. In this Fourth Report, the Advisory Committee documents the
substantial progress made in addressing the trends raised in the
Third Report. Records management practices in offices of Members
of Congress, long-term preservation of electronic records, the
establishment of the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress,
completion of renovations to the National Archives Building in
Washington, D.C., the planning and construction of the Capitol
Visitor Center; and the continued exhibits and outreach projects of
the National Archives and the Center for Legislative Archives are all
discussed at length in the following pages.
Significant, unforeseen events have also affected the work of the
Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress during the past six
years. The 9/11 attacks, and the establishment of the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States to review the
events surrounding these attacks, resulted in the creation and
transfer of the commission�s records to the Center for Legislative
Archives. The discovery of anthrax in mail addressed to Members
of Congress led to the disruption of mail delivery and the
irradiation of all mail coming to Capitol Hill, and has permanently
altered procedures for processing mail sent to Capitol Hill. Further
strides in capturing and preserving electronic records are evident
in the establishment of Electronic Records Archives (ERA) at the
National Archives, as well as NARA�s web harvesting project, which for
the first time in 2004 captured, preserved, and made accessible web
sites of all government agencies, including the legislative branch.
Recommendations for continued work by the Advisory Committee are
outlined in the following Executive Summary.
These recommendations build on the successes documented in this
Fourth Report regarding records management, access, and preservation,
as they relate to the records of Congress and to the private
papers of Members of Congress. As we look ahead at the next six
years, we are confident that these recommended tools will ensure
the long term management, preservation, and access to congressional
records and Members� private papers. While there is much
to do, much has been accomplished.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Advisory Committee was formed in 1990 to focus increased
attention on the status and use of the official records of the House
and Senate and Members� personal papers. Over the past sixteen years,
the committee has served as the single, national forum where the
concerns of the broadly dispersed congressional papers community and
its Washington partners can be given voice. Every six years this
committee assesses the progress made and challenges that confront us.
This Fourth Report documents how much has been accomplished; it
also shows that change is the only constant in the record-keeping
world. The committee will continue to monitor, guide, and support
our records partners as they face a challenging future in documenting
the history of representative democracy.
In its Fourth Report to Congress, the Advisory Committee on the
Records of Congress highlights four critical developments: progress
made in providing guidance in records management and support for
the preservation of official and personal papers; advances in
electronic record keeping and archiving; the establishment of the
Association of Centers for the Study of Congress to facilitate access
to congressional records and advance public understanding of
Congress; and, through the completion of the Capitol Visitor Center,
the transformation of the Capitol into a visitor friendly environment.
The first two reports of the Advisory Committee focused on developing
the official records of Congress at the Center for Legislative
Archives at the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA), while the Third Report turned its attention to preserving
Members' papers. This report reflects the trend within the community
of congressional archives, fostered by the Advisory Committee,
to take a more coordinated and collaborative approach to both types
of records.
Chapter I presents new guidance and outreach efforts to
promote better records management practices on the Hill. It
highlights the 2001 anthrax attacks and the impact of irradiation of
government mail and the long-term preservation of records.
The accessioning of the permanent records of the 9/11
Commission at the National Archives gives the Center unique
responsibilities and resource challenges to preserve these complex
and important records and provide access to researchers.
Chapter II chronicles the rapid change of technology and its
impact on document retention for the House, Senate, and congressional
support services. The continued progress of
NARA�s Electronic Records Archives (ERA) project, and the
promising alliances formed with a variety of top-tier public
and private partners, demonstrate the advances made in the
development of solutions to overcome dependencies on current hardware
and software programs. NARA's capture of
information posted on federal government websites within the
last six years preserves another valuable and ever-changing
form of digital information. Also featured is a description of
the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee electronic archiving project.
Chapter III covers Members' papers and ongoing issues
described in the Third Report. Of particular importance is the
establishment of the Association of Centers for the Study of
Congress, a newly created organization that brings together
archivists, historians, political scientists, and others from congressional and public policy centers interested in advancing
public understanding of Congress.
Chapter IV summarizes the completion of renovations of the
National Archives Building.
Chapter V details the planning and construction of the Capitol
Visitor Center (CVC), which will provide many opportunities
to present the story of the Capitol to visitors, researchers, and
students.
Chapter VI highlights the new exhibits at the National
Archives and the Center for Legislative Archives' outreach projects
featuring congressional records.
Chapter VII updates the progress made in areas targeted in the
first three reports.
In the 16 years since its inception, the Advisory Committee notes
substantial progress in the following areas:
Establishing a strongly staffed Center for Legislative Archives
and completing the renovation of the Center�s facilities.
Establishing better archival, administrative, and intellectual
controls over the records of congressional committees and
improving committee records management guidance through
publications and seminars.
Providing Members' offices records management guidance
through publications and briefings.
Initiating cooperative activities amongst the Center for
Legislative Archives, the Congressional Papers Roundtable of
the Society of American Archivists, and the Association of
Centers for the Study of Congress.
Establishing a strong preservation/conservation program for
the Center for Legislative Archives� holdings and investigating
new preservation challenges such as the irradiation of congressional
mail.
Initiating a program of electronic records management and
preservation.
Establishing educational resources and exhibits using the
archival holdings of the Center.
Improving access to congressional archives through the
publication of finding aids, historical and biographical publications,
and additional print and web resources.
Monitoring the planning, design, and construction of the
Capitol Visitor Center.
To improve the management, preservation, and access to
Members� papers and committee records, the Advisory Committee
recommends the following:
Records Management and Collections Development
Encourages committees to manage and preserve significant e-
mail in light of the "lessons learned" by the Senate Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Encourages the Center to collaborate with other organizations
to sponsor conferences and symposia on congressional records
management and improving scholarship.
Recommends that legislative support agencies review and
update records schedules as needed to reflect new records formats and technologies.
Recommends revision and updating of the report entitled The
Documentation of Congress (S. Pub. 102-20) to reflect new types
of documentary sources and to assess the extent to which the
initial recommendations have been fulfilled. In December
1992, the Advisory Committee adopted a resolution accepting
the recommendations of the report as "providing a model
framework for discussion and planning of future coordinated
actions among the Congress, the Center for Legislative
Archives, and the hundreds of archival repositories across the
nation that specialize in preserving the historical documentation of Congress." The report outlined a comprehensive, coordinated approach to improving documentation of the legislative branch. Many of these recommendations are reflected in
the list at the end of the Fourth Report.
Preservation
Encourages the Legislative Mail Task Force to use findings
provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to
consider alternative means of irradiation which would cause
less damage to the archival materials.
Recommends further study of the most effective ways to
preserve and promote the use of Members'
papers.
Encourages committees to transfer a copy of executive session
transcripts at the end of each Congress to the Center.
Access
Encourages the House, Senate, and Center to use the World
Wide Web to expand access to a wider community users to a
growing body of congressional information and documentation.
Requests the Center to expand the Committee Resource Guides
(CRG) of the Standing Committees History Project within the
next three years to include all 19 standing committees of the
House and the other 15 standing committees of the Senate. To
reach this goal within the next three years, the Center will
employ the combined efforts of the archival and outreach staffs
and interns.
Requests the Center to provide updates on the status of the
records of the 9/11 Commission, including the effect on Center
staff resources.
Requests a study and report by the appropriate congressional
office on current gift tax law and its effect on the donation of
Members� papers.
Encourages the Association of Centers for the Study of
Congress (ACSC) to attract member organizations from all
states in pursuit of the goal to establish at least one congressional center in each state and to collaborate on the development of programs and products to advance scholarly research
on Congress and promote public understanding of representative government.
Supports the collaborations of the Center and congressional
centers to continue and expand educational workshops promoting teaching about Congress in United States history and
government classes.
Encourages partners to continue to collaborate on the exhibits
and educational programs in the CVC.
Requests the Center to develop a pilot project to evaluate the
feasibility of scanning microfilmed records of Congress in
order to make them available to researchers on the National
Archives website.
CONTENTS
I. Preservation of and Access to
Official Records of Congress
A. Records Management Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
B. Anthrax and Mail Irradiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
C. Public Records in Private Hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives
and Records Administration (NARA): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
D. 9/11 Commission Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
E. Accessions and Loans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
F. Reference Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
G. Preservation of House and Senate Records . . . . . . . . . . .10
H. Records Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
I. National Archives Website and
Center for Legislative Archives Website . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
II. Electronic Records
A. National Archives� Electronic Records Archives (ERA) . .13
B. Web Harvesting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
C. Electronic Records Transfer Recommendations . . . . . . . .15
D. XMLProject in Senate and House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
E. Senate Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs (HSGC)
Electronic Archiving Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
F. Senate Document Management System
for Senate Offices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
III. Preservation of and Access to Members� Records . . . . . . . . . .21
A. Congressional Papers Roundtable
of the Society of American Archivists
and the Advisory Committee Task Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
B. Member Records Management Recommendations . . . . .22
C. The Association of Centers
for the Study of Congress (ACSC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
IV. National Archives and Records Administration . . . . . . . . . . .27
A. Building Renovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
B. Report on Summer 2006 Flood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
V. The U.S. Capitol Visitor Center:
History, Education and Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
VI. Outreach Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
A. American Originals: Traveling Exhibit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
B. The National Archives Experience: Public Vaults . . . . . .35
C. Exhibits and Films at the Capitol Visitor Center . . . . . . .37
D. Educational Publications and Workshops . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
E. Conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39
F. Anniversaries and Special Facsimile Packets . . . . . . . . . .41
G. Internships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
VII. Status of Recommendations From
the First Three Advisory Committee Reports
and Analysis of Resource Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
A. Maximizing Documentation of the Legislative Process .43
B. Preservation Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
C. Access and Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48
D. Outreach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50
Appendix A: The Homeland Security Governmental Affairs
Committee Electronic Archiving Project Report
by Elisabeth Butler, Archivist,
Committee on Governmental Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . .53
Appendix B: Funding Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55
Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members . . . . . . . . . . . .57
Appendix D: Statute Establishing Advisory Committee . . . . . . . .61
FOURTH REPORT OF THE
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE
RECORDS OF CONGRESS
I. PRESERVATION OF AND ACCESS TO
OFFICIAL RECORDS OF CONGRESS
A. Records Management Guidance
Two committee issues related to official records have persistently
challenged the Advisory Committee since its creation in 1991. The
first issue involves Members� private papers and their retention in an
appropriate facility. Some Members have regarded their committee
records as personal property either to be shipped to their archival
repositories when they leave Congress or to be destroyed. The second relates to the records and papers of committee staff. Since staff
turnover rates continue at high levels, this situation deprives committees of their long-term institutional memory and erodes practices
designed to promote systematic record-keeping. Both actions threaten the continuity of congressional history.
The Senate and House archivists, working through the
Congressional Papers Roundtable (CPR) of the Society of American
Archivists, have informed repository archivists about the statute law
and standing rules of their respective congressional bodies that prohibit Members from transferring original committee records to any
institution other than the National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA). This communication has led to the retrieval
of misdirected records.
During the past six years, both the House of Representatives and
the Senate have continued to encourage committees to improve the
records management practices of their staffs. The House has worked
towards updating records management guidelines for committees.
Originally the House Legislative Resource Center consulted with
committees on archival matters and the transfer and retrieval of
records with the Center for Legislative Archives, NARA. When the
Office of History and Preservation (OHP) was created in 2002, it
became the entity designated to work with committees regarding
archival matters.
OHP compiled and published an updated manual for committees
titled Records Management Manual for Committees of the U.S. House of
Representatives. The manual retains much of the same information as
the former manual, titled Archiving Committee Records. Committee
records still are identified by the following series: legislative, oversight and investigative and administrative records. Additional information targets specific archival topics for committees. These topics
include preparation of committee records for transfer to OHP,
retrieval of retired committee records from OHP and NARA, handling of classified committee records, and preservation of electronic
committee records. More detailed guidelines describe the types of
records typically kept by a committee with recommendations on their
proper disposition. Blank copies of forms for committee use in transferring records are provided as well as for authorizing staff access to
records. OHP created separate brochures on several of the topics
mentioned to provide committees with the information they may
need concerning their records. This year the committee manual and
brochures have been professionally published and distributed to all
committees and are available on the Intranet website for the Clerk of
the House.
OHP continues to conduct a yearly workshop for committee staff
on how they should create, maintain, retire, and retrieve records.
Representatives from the Center for Legislative Archives participate
in the workshop and describe the services they provide.
The Senate Archivist revised and reissued the Records Management
Handbook for United States Senate Committees in 2005. In an effort to
provide additional guidance to chief and minority clerks, a new section delineates their vital role in overseeing records management.
This guidance represents a combination of "best practices" of several
committees. It encourages the chief and minority clerks to:
Direct records retention and disposition activities throughout
the committee and subcommittees.
Transfer non-current records directly through the Senate
Archivist, and if the chief clerk/minority clerk does not retain
a master set of transfer documentation, designate an
archivist/records manager to do so.
Ensure that the staff are briefed when they are hired and periodically thereafter about their responsibilities to maintain complete
and well organized records.
Designate individuals at all levels to assist in the preparation of
committee records for transfer to the Center for Legislative
Archives, NARA, at the end of each Congress and at other
times when necessary.
Ensure the retention and timely archiving of all transcripts of
committee hearings, business meetings, nomination files, and
official communications.
Ensure that a set of briefing books prepared for hearings are
routinely archived by majority and minority staff.
Ensure that records of significant legislation, oversight issues,
and investigations are properly managed and routinely
archived.
Ensure that material prepared for archival retention includes
all relevant files, especially electronic versions of documents.
In addition, the Senate handbook encourages committees to hire
people with archival/records management expertise or provide staff
training. A sample job description is included in the 2005 edition of
the handbook for the committees� use. During 2000 two committees
(Finance, and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs) hired
archivists to assist with records management and archiving. By 2003,
the Senate Judiciary Committee hired two full-time archivists, one
each for the Republicans and Democrats, and in 2005 the Senate
Budget Committee employed an archivist part-time. The implementation of the training and archivist recommendation has resulted in a
significant improvement in the record keeping practices of these committees.
Electronic recordkeeping is re-emphasized by highlighting the
experience of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs (See Section II - Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Electronic Archiving Project). In August 2004,
a protocol was developed with help from NARA that facilitates
archiving of electronic documents from the committee. Staff is
reminded that committee servers must not be deleted and wiped
clean before committee documents have been archived. Chief clerks,
minority clerks, and committee archivists are advised to work with
the systems administrators to provide adequate guidance to all committee staff. It stresses that staff should be guided in:
Naming and grouping documents into folders on internal network drives.
Creating archive folders in email and grouping all relevant
communications into the appropriate folders.
Segregating and deleting irrelevant files of departing staff.
Archiving all pertinent electronic documents of departing staff.
Ensuring the security of information.
Transferring the permanent electronic documents to NARA.
To encourage increased attention to recordkeeping, the Senate
Committee on Rules and Administration asked each committee to
submit a report on its archiving activities in 2004 as part of the committee�s 2005 appropriations request. Committees were given reports
prepared by the Senate Archivist with help from the Center for
Legislative Archives staff detailing accessions sent to the Center during 1998-2004. The plan is to repeat this reporting requirement at
each budget cycle. The reports serve to reveal important shortcomings and gaps in document retention, which can be addressed during
individual meetings between the Senate Archivist and committee
clerks. Special emphasis will be placed on ensuring that mark-up
transcripts, briefing books, nomination files, and records of major legislation and investigations together with the relevant e-mail are being
sent to NARA.
In 2004 the Senate Archivist discovered a wide variety of practices
by committees in sending their mark-up transcripts to the Center. As
a result, all committees were urged to follow the lead of the Senate
Finance Committee and create a security backup version of the transcripts. Some committees have used the OnBase document management system operated by the Senate Imaging Lab to save the electronic transcripts on microfilm and CD-ROMs. Others scan the transcripts in-house and send the paper version to the Center for security storage. All committees currently have copies of their transcripts
stored off-site at the Center.
The Senate Archivist conducts an annual records management
seminar for committee staff and individual office briefings upon
request. Prior to the conclusion of each Congress, committee chief
clerks and assistant clerks are invited to the Center for Legislative
Archives for a briefing and tour.
The 2004 revised edition of Records Disposition Procedures for the
Offices of the Secretary of the Senate presents guidelines for identifying
and transferring the principal records to the Center for Legislative
Archives. It establishes paper-quality standards for permanent
records, and identifies critical records, which should be duplicated
and stored off-site at the Center for Legislative Archives for security
reasons. The offices of the Secretary and Sergeant at Arms oversee
and administer the plans of individual offices in order to maintain
vital records and continuity of operations.
In 2000 and 2001 the Senate Archivist worked with staff in the
office of the Sergeant at Arms (SAA) to draft a comprehensive records
schedule that was presented by the retiring SAA to the Senate
Appropriations Committee as part of the SAA�s accomplishments
package.
During 2004 and 2005 the Senate Archivist worked with officials in
the Capitol Police headquarters to draft a comprehensive records
schedule, Records Management Policy and Procedures and Records
Disposition Schedule, which was adopted in February 2005. The schedule represents a first for the Capitol Police and facilitates the use of
the Washington National Records Center for the storage of their temporary records.
B. Anthrax and Mail Irradiation
In October 2001 the office of Senator Tom Daschle in the Hart
Senate Office Building received an unidentified letter containing
anthrax. Additional letters laced with anthrax arrived at other
Members� offices a few days later. The Hart Senate Office Building
and several other congressional facilities were closed for extended
periods of time during testing and decontamination.
In November and December 2001 the U.S. Postal Service began to
irradiate mail coming to Capitol Hill. Irradiation works by disrupting the DNA of hazardous microorganisms and preventing their
growth and reproduction. As a result of the anthrax incidents, mail
delivery has been adversely impacted and the use of e-mail and faxes
has become a preferred method of communication.
The House and Senate Archivists attended a briefing at NARA in
June 2002 regarding the irradiation of congressional mail and its long-
term effects on paper. Discussions were held about what to do with
historically valuable documents, such as certificates of election that
irradiation would damage. Alternative means of delivery for these
items have been implemented.
In December 2002 NARA conservators reported on the impact of
irradiation on archival materials to a Mail Irradiation Interest Group,
which included the House of Representatives, Senate, Center for
Legislative Archives (NARA), White House, Library of Congress,
NARA Preservation Programs, Document Conservation Laboratory,
Presidential Materials Staff, National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST), and the Department of Commerce. NARA has
posted a "Frequently Asked Questions" section on its web site offering initial guidance to records managers in handling irradiated documents.
NARA has maintained a liaison with NIST and the Armed Forces
Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI) concerning the U.S. mail
irradiation program and its long-term implications for archival
records. In order to deactivate potential biohazards, such as anthrax,
the U.S. Postal Service continues to irradiate first-class business and
letter-size envelopes and flats, Express and Priority mail, and other
packages that are addressed to specific government offices in
Washington, D.C., containing Zip Codes 20200 through 20599, which
include the buildings on Capitol Hill and the National Archives in
Washington, D.C.
Future refinements of the mail irradiation protocol might exploit a
combination of lower-dose irradiation and other antimicrobial
processes to provide broad-based and effective sanitation with less
degradation of treated materials. NARA will continue to monitor
developments and provide updates to the Mail Irradiation Interest
Group.
NARA is investigating the effect of irradiation on archival materials. In October 2004, NARA released a memorandum outlining the
implementation of a proposed new process developed by the White
House Office of Science and Technology Policy Task Force on Mail
Irradiation and supported by NIST. Ultimately, consideration of new
protocols and processes would be the responsibility of the Legislative
Mail Task Force. The Legislative Mail Task Force is a joint entity created in January 2002 and comprised of representatives from medical
and scientific agencies tasked to study methods to ensure safe and
timely mail delivery to the House and Senate.
C. Public Records in Private Hands
In 2002 the Clerk of the House raised the issue of "alienated
records" for discussion with the Advisory Committee. Certain documents from the Forbes Collection auctioned by Sotheby�s, Inc., had
come to the attention of the Clerk�s Office. The auction inventory
included two messages from the president, which were nominally
congressional documents, including the president�s 1812 war message to the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Sotheby�s auction raised a number of complicated issues
regarding the care and history of congressional documents that date
from an earlier era before statutes and House and Senate rules
defined archival practices and mandates. Some documents have long
ago been separated from their institutional origins and now reside in
private collections and repositories.
The Advisory Committee identified the following questions as
being central to the issue of public records in private hands:
How should these records be identified?
Under what circumstances should an agency of the government attempt to recover these records? How should current
holders of the documents be approached?
What institutional entity should be responsible to identify and
pursue acquisition of these records?
After a series of discussions with representatives from the manuscript community, the National Archives assigned selected staff mem
bers in 2004 to monitor the public sale of federal documents and
records. If records were identified for sale or auction, the monitors
would contact the custodial agent and the Office of the Inspector
General when appropriate. In the case of legislative documents, the
monitors contacted the director of the Center for Legislative Archives
(NARA), who in turn alerted the House and Senate archivists.
In late 2005 the National Archives signed a cooperative agreement
with the National Coalition for History (NCH), a non-profit organization composed of more than 70 archival and historical organizations, to establish a pilot project to systematically monitor manuscript
markets and identify documents that appear to have been stolen or
otherwise alienated from archival and historical collections. NCH
will make regular reports to the National Archives on its activities
and findings.
The House enjoyed a recent success when a former staff member
who worked on both House and Senate committees made an inquiry
about records he possessed. When it became clear that the records
were official committee records covered under both House and
Senate rules, the former staff member graciously donated the materials to the House and Senate and the papers now reside with the
records of the appropriate committees at the Center for Legislative
Archives (NARA).
The Advisory Committee also discussed the possibility of encouraging private collectors to loan significant national documentary
treasures to be displayed in the exhibitions in the Capitol Visitor
Center (CVC). Scheduled for completion in late 2007 or early 2008,
the CVC provides Congress with the opportunity to tell its story to
the millions who visit the Capitol each year, and for private collectors
to consider the loan of documents for display in a world-class exhibit.
Center for Legislative Archives,
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA):
D. 9/11 Commission Records
The Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and
Records Administration (NARA) is the custodian of the permanent
records of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the
United States (the 9/11 Commission), which was defined by a 2002
statute as a legislative commission. Conducting one of the most
important investigations in the nation�s history, the Commission produced a best-selling report, a frequently-visited website that featured
digital versions of its public hearings and reports released to the public, and an archive comprised of 600 cubic feet of textual records and
more than one terabyte of data in electronic form.
The commissioners strongly encouraged NARA to maintain an
operational version of the Commission's archived website so that the
public would have uninterrupted access to the open hearings, unclassified reports, staff monographs, and other materials made available
by the Commission. NARA has preserved the website and maintains
a public access version at the original URL
(www.9-11commission.gov).
Currently, 20 percent of the Center's archival staff time (from a total
of six full-time archivists on staff) is devoted to processing the 9/11
Commission records. The Center estimates that it will require a minimum of six full-time staff beginning in FY 07 to review and process
the unclassified records by the opening deadline of January 2009.
Since there are no plans to expand the size of the Center staff, additional assistance will be sought from other National Archives units,
which themselves are under pressure to meet other processing deadlines.
The Commission�s extensive and varied electronic records pose
their own unique challenge. Typical of modern records, they include
a document management system, e-mails with attachments, digital
audio and video files, web records, databases, and word processing
files. The Electronic and Special Media Records Services Division at
NARA is responsible for the preservation of the electronic records
and will also assist in providing access to these in the future.
E. Accessions and Loans
Over the last six years, the Center accessioned 21,443 cubic feet of
House and Senate records, a 39 percent increase over the 15,396 cubic
feet of records accessioned in the period covered by the Third Report.
This impressive growth of legislative records reflects in part
Congress� response to some landmark events that have distinguished
the recent past-including the response to the attacks of September
11, major shifts in tax policy, a government reorganization, and the
reorientation of national security policy. Total holdings at the Center
currently exceed 185,000 cubic feet of records.
The most critical function performed by the Center is the prompt
and timely response to House and Senate committee requests for
archived records to conduct urgent business. Working closely with
House and Senate Archivists and committee staff when necessary, the
Center processed a total of 1,006 separate committee requests for
records over the last six years, a 27 percent increase over the 791 loans
processed and documented in the Advisory Committee�s Third
Report.
NARA�s promise to deliver records to committees within 24 hours
of receiving a request is contingent on the availability of drivers and
trucks from the Facilities Division. For additional logistical support
to meet this goal, the Center has recently made arrangements with
the Metro Courier Service at the Washington National Records Center
to supply additional transportation options. Metro Courier Service is
responsible for records transportation to and from federal agencies
throughout the Metro area, so they are well equipped to provide service to the House and Senate.
F. Reference Trends
The reference staff has continued to provide high-quality service to
meet the needs of a diverse research clientele. During the last six
years, staff responded to a total of 14,362 telephone inquiries; 4,960
letters, emails, and reproduction orders; and 3,966 walk-in
researchers. They retrieved a total of 22,287 items (boxes, trays, and
bound volumes) for researchers to view in the research room.
Researchers have requested assistance on such diverse topics as legislation designating federal lands as wildlife refuges, government
assistance to African American Civil War veterans, tariff legislation
during the Woodrow Wilson administration, salaries of Senate clerks,
and the House Judiciary Committee investigations of the Justice
Department during the 1950s.
The Center has become increasingly active in providing support to
scholars working on a variety of path-breaking works on Congress,
including biographies of Lyndon Johnson and Stuart Symington,
major works on Congress and World War II, congressional reform in
the 1960s and 1970s, congressional oversight of the intelligence community during the Cold War, Congress and environmental policy,
Congress and the Korean War, a history of the Senate in the 20th century, and a history of the House of Representatives. Political scientists have used House and Senate records to explore a variety of topics, such as committee assignment requests, the Senate confirmation
process, the gate-keeping function of the House Rules Committee,
and the 20th century use of discharge petitions in the House.
The staff responds to the shifting interests of the public, trends
within academia, and the influx of researcher demands for records
that recently have become publicly available. All of these forces converged to create a spike in researcher interest after the 2001 opening
of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) records.
The Center released more than 400 cubic feet of HUAC records to the
public in accordance with public access provisions for non-current
permanent records outlined in House Rule VII. The Center will continue to screen the remaining closed records on a case-by-case basis
and release them in accordance with House Rule VII. Researchers
have been especially interested in executive session transcripts and
notable figures, such as Alger Hiss and the "Hollywood Ten."
G. Preservation of House and Senate Records
Central to the Center�s mission is the physical preservation of the
records of Congress. Preservation of House and Senate records is
continuous and pervades many of the Center�s projects and initiatives. The Center has worked with NARA�s Document Conservation
Lab in the preparation of House and Senate documents before they
go on public display. The Document Conservation Lab also created
custom housings for the valuable and voluminous Senate collection
of political cartoons created by Clifford K. Berryman. The primary
focus of the Center�s holdings maintenance staff remains the copying
of thermofax records onto archival bond for permanent preservation.
As an added precaution during the renovation of the National
Archives Building, the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the
Senate directed the Center to relocate the records of the first 14
Congresses and the Center�s vault collection of the most historically
valuable records to a secure vault in another location. A new state-ofthe-art vault has been constructed in the National Archives Building,
with improved fire detection, fire suppression, and electronic security systems to provide the most secure and safe environment for irreplaceable House and Senate documents. The legislative treasures
were returned to the vault in 2006, and on September 21, 2006,
Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert joined Archivist of the United
States, Allen Weinstein, and Director of the Center for Legislative
Archives, Richard Hunt, for a special viewing of legislative treasures
and for a brief press event.
H. Records Description
The Center�s records description activities have been driven by
NARA�s commitment to complete the Archival Research Catalog
(ARC), the agency�s online catalog of records descriptions. In the last
two years the Center has entered more than 750 series descriptions
covering 49 percent of its holdings. The agency-wide goal of providing access to 80% of NARA's total holdings by 2008 through ARC
means the Center will continue to devote significant staff resources to
this endeavor. This labor-intensive project will consume additional
resources when more detailed descriptions are added to the series
level entries for the online catalog.
The Center prepared a "Committee Resource Guide" for the
records of the Senate Committee on the Budget, which is available on
the Center�s website. The "Committee Resource Guides" supplement and update the records descriptions included in the 1989 Guide
to the Records of the United States Senate at the National Archives. Due to
the creation of the Budget Committee in 1974 and the 20-year access
rule for Senate records, the new resource guide provides the first
description of Budget Committee records available to the public.
I. National Archives Website and
Center for Legislative Archives Website
On July 20, 2005, NARA unveiled its newly designed website,
http://www.Archives.gov, which recently won a "Best Practices,
Best Web Design in 2005" award for federal government websites.
This redesign, the second one completed in the past five years, was
undertaken to improve the website�s ease of use, provide access
points for important customer groups, help users more easily access
the vast resources of NARA, and improve its overall appearance and
functionality. Among the many new features on NARA�s website,
one of particular note is a "Legislative Branch" records portal displayed on the main page that provides a direct link to the Center for
Legislative Archives website and information concerning House and
Senate records.
The Center�s website, http://www.Archives.gov/legislative, has
undergone two major redesigns since 2001 and provides the user
with a range of options and search tools. The first page is entitled
"Center for Legislative Archives," which provides the user with
information on the Center, its publications, and reports to Congress.
The Center�s main holdings can be accessed through "Researching
Congress." This link affords the public access to finding aids to the
Center�s congressional records, the 9/11 Commission Report, and the
Advisory Committee Reports and meeting minutes. For researchers
who would like to view a broad-range of congressional topics, the
feature "Resources" affords an invaluable online access to the
Center�s collections.
New features have also been added to increase usability and content offerings. The "News and Events" section provides information
on recent and up-coming events at the Center for Legislative
Archives and NARA. The "Featured Document" section highlights a
historically significant document from the records of the House and
Senate and provides contextual information as well as printable high
resolution digital images. A search feature for the on-line House and
Senate Guides has been added, and a Center-specific email address
can be accessed directly from the Center�s web page
(legislative.archives@nara.gov).
Another addition to the Center�s website is a section on the 9/11
Commission records, which features the Staff Monograph on the Four
Flights and Civil Aviation Security, released after the Commission
expired. Users can also gain access to the archived version of the
original 9/11 Commission website through the Center�s web pages.
In 2002 the Center assumed responsibility for the "Congressional
Collections at Archival Institutions" website formerly hosted by the
University of Delaware. This portal to congressional papers collections dispersed around the country is one of the most heavily used
features on the Center�s site. The "Congressional Collections" pages
aid researchers by providing a centralized listing of the location of
Members� personal papers, links to the repositories� websites, and
finding aids when available. Access is provided alphabetically by
state, hosting organization, and Member�s name. There are over 86
participating institutions listed that collectively house the personal
papers of thousands of Members of Congress.
Another major online recourse was the "Our Documents" project,
completed in 2003. "Our Documents" was an effort to make available
online the top 100 most influential documents in American history
from 1776 to 1965. The project was created by NARA and National
History Day in collaboration with USA Freedom Corps to give
Americans a better understanding of the records that shaped our
country. Fourteen of these documents are from the records of the
House of Representatives and the Senate and many others reflect the
work and influence of Congress. The Center played a key role in
acquiring high-resolution images of these documents online and
accessible to the public.
II. ELECTRONIC RECORDS
A. National Archives� Electronic Records Archives (ERA)
The Electronic Records Archives (ERA) is NARA�s response to the
challenges inherent in the diverse, complex, and enormous volume of
electronic records being created today, as well as the rapidly changing systems used to create them. ERA will be a comprehensive, systematic, and dynamic means for preserving virtually any kind of electronic record free from dependence on specific hardware or software.
When operational, ERA will support NARA�s mission by making it
easy for the public and government officials to locate and access the
original records of our government and by facilitating NARA�s presentation of those records in convenient formats.
Since the onset of research contributing to ERA development in
1998, NARA has included congressional electronic records collections
in tests to ensure that specific technical characteristics and requirements assigned those collections continue to be considered in ERA
planning and development. The inclusion of test collections from the
104th Congress provided significant contributions to the 1999 results
in collection-based preservation. In addition, a test collection of
Senate records from the 106th Congress contributed to the 2001
breakthrough results in highly rigorous formal logic-based preservation.
Other records in the Center�s custody, such as the 9/11
Commission records, incorporate a multitude of record formats
including streaming video files, databases, digital photos, audio
recordings, office automation documents, email with attachments,
web pages, and paper records. The variety of file formats included in
these records pose new preservation challenges and will contribute to
the further development of ERA.
Much of the information used today to secure our borders, protect
our citizens, coordinate relief efforts, and make the laws of the land
will be needed long after the computers and software that created
them are obsolete. The day-to-day operation of what we now refer to
as our e-Government depends on reliable management of the rapidly increasing amount of electronic records created every hour by
Congress, the courts, and the Executive Office of the President. ERA
will make it easier for these entities to transfer their electronic records
to NARA.
ERA holds the promise of preserving all the important work of
Congress that is created and preserved electronically. ERA will also
provide the functionality to enable committee staff access to records
stored in ERA to conduct current business.
On September 8, 2005, the Archivist of the United States
announced the award of a $308 million, six-year development contract to Lockheed Martin to build ERA. On September 8 the ERA
Program Director announced the formation of a high-level committee
to advise and make recommendations to the Archivist of the United
States on issues related to the development, implementation, and use
of the ERA system. This 20-member committee is named the
Advisory Committee on the Electronic Records Archives (ACERA).
ACERA will provide an ongoing structure for bringing together
experts in computer science and information technology, archival science and records management, information science, the law, history,
genealogy, and education.
Currently Lockheed Martin Corporation is actively building the
system which will be available to schedule and transfer electronic
records beginning in the fall of 2007.
B. Web Harvesting
In the fall of 2004 NARA conducted a systematic harvest (i.e., capture) of federal agency public websites. Web harvesting is the process
of automatically copying and organizing unstructured information
from pages and data on the World Wide Web. The harvest produced
a public reference copy of websites for the purpose of determining
the continuity of availability to the public and produced a recorded
copy to be preserved in the holdings of NARA.
The 2004 harvest collected approximately 6.5 terabytes of information, roughly 75 million web pages from approximately 50,000 ".gov"
and ".mil" unrestricted federal web sites active between October 14,
2004 and November 19, 2004. Websites included in the harvest were
identified from information provided by the U.S. General Services
Administration's (GSA) ".gov" Internet Domain Registry. The harvest
included 52 specific sites from the legislative branch, including the
Senate and House web domains from the 108th Congress, and legislative branch agencies� websites.
After the harvest of federal agency websites in 2004, NARA
planned to conduct similar harvests every four years to coincide with
the cycle of presidential terms. The Senate Archivist, however, raised
the concern that harvesting at four-year intervals would not adequately document significant changes in congressional web content
driven by the two-year congressional election cycle. NARA and
Center for Legislative Archives staff, in consultation with the House
and Senate Archivists, IT Support Services staff under the Senate
Sergeant at Arms, and the House Information Resources staff under
the Chief Administrative Officer of the House, concluded that the
harvest schedule of congressional records needed to be modified to
capture changes in each Congress. As a result, NARA plans to harvest Senate and House websites at two-year intervals and will use
web lists provided by the House and Senate.
The first Congress-specific harvest, at the conclusion of the 109th
Congress in the fall of 2006, will include approximately 615 websites
and the capture of an estimated 120-160 gigabytes of information.
The harvested "snapshot" of the congressional websites will be suitably documented as a historic record and made accessible to the public. Each page will be properly labeled as a NARA record with its
date of capture, and all external links blocked, so users do not confuse
the historical record with current, live web content maintained on
active congressional websites.
C. Electronic Records Transfer Guidance
As a part of President George W. Bush�s Electronic Records
Management e-Government initiative, NARA has worked with the
federal records management community to expand the types of
record formats it accepts for the transfer of permanently valuable
electronic records. These new transfer standards reflect priorities
articulated by the records management community and will provide
improved guidance to House and Senate archivists and records managers responsible for the preservation of legislative branch electronic
records.
Since 2002, NARA has worked to expand its guidance to include
dozens of formats in six crucial areas: emails with attachments,
scanned images of textual records, Portable Document Format (PDF)
files, digital photographs, Geographic Information Systems (GIS),
and content from the World Wide Web. The new guidance now
undergoing testing and review represents a marked improvement
over the three types of electronic records formats currently accepted
for transfer (ASCII, EBCIDIC, and SGML-markup). No further
expansion of transfer formats is planned until after the development
of the Electronic Records Archives (ERA).
D. XML Project in Senate and House
Senate Legislative Information System (LIS)
The LIS is a mandated system (Section 8 of the 1997 Legislative
Appropriations Act, 2 U.S.C.123e) to provide a "comprehensive
Senate Legislative Information System" to capture, store, manage,
and distribute Senate documents. The Advisory Committee has
monitored this project since its inception to ensure that the information is in formats that can be transferred to NARA for preservation.
Since publication of the Advisory Committee�s Third Report in 2000,
major enhancements have been developed towards implementing a
system for authoring and exchanging legislative documents in a standard format (2 U.S.C. 181).
In keeping with the goals of preserving information free from a
proprietary format, a major focus has been to establish a procedure
whereby the legislative information is created within an Extensible
Markup Language (XML) structure. The procedure must be convenient to use and allow the document creators to draft bills according to
the structure and style of laws as they have evolved over the years.
The application is called the Legislative Editing in XML Application,
or LEXA. Following requirements analysis in 2001, LEXA was developed throughout 2002 and 2003 and deployed in the Office of the
Legislative Counsel in January 2004. In addition, records (bills, resolutions, and amendments) from the 106th through the 108th
Congresses (1999-2004) were converted to the new XML format but
with much technical difficulty. The conversion software cannot produce an historically accurate version of the documents, but it can create the XML so that the whole or parts of documents can be used to
draft a subsequent document in XML.
In 2005 approximately 80 percent of introduced and reported bills
were produced in XML. Other documents and engrossed and
enrolled bills are still produced utilizing the old software. LEXA will
be introduced to other offices including the Enrolling Clerk and committees, probably beginning with the Senate Appropriations
Committee. More document types will be added, such as committee
reports, hearings, and eventually work from the clerks who prepare
the journals, calendars, and Congressional Record. The LEXA system
does maintain various versions of bills allowing easy tracking of the
evolution of a bill.
The production and exchange of XML documents is a joint effort of
the Senate, House of Representatives, Government Printing Office
(GPO), and Library of Congress. Legislative branch XML standards
are still evolving and each organization is handling individual needs
while collaborating on the common standards so that documents can
be exchanged. The electronic XML document goes to GPO where the
paper copy is produced by converting the document back to the old
format for composition through Microcomp, GPO�s proprietary software. All electronic documents are sent to the Library of Congress
where they are processed for the LIS system, which is internal to the
legislative branch, and then to the Library of Congress� THOMAS
system where it is available to the public. The Library produces a
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) document and pairs it with
the Portable Document Format (PDF) document that GPO produces.
Ultimately, when all documents are in XML, they will be displayed
on the web and accessible to the public. When all data is in XML and
when the search engine for XML is perfected, the public�s ability to
search the data as a single system will be greatly enhanced. At some
point, the database could become so large that the search process
could slow. At that point, selected files may be saved and archived at
NARA.
House Document Management System Initiative
The House Document Management System (House DMS)
Initiative represents an enterprise-wide approach to the creation, distribution, and maintenance of legislative information. Managed by
the Office of the Clerk�s Legislative Computer Systems department, it
endeavors to make improvements in the cost, accuracy, timeliness,
efficiency of the process, and establishment of common data standards for the exchange of legislative information. The primary focus
to date has been the transformation, creation, and exchange of House
documents using the industry-based standards approach of
Extensible Markup Language (XML). This includes customizing an
XML editor for the creation of bills, resolutions, and amendments.
The system also allows the transmission of documents in XML format
to the Government Printing Office (GPO) and the Library of Congress
(LOC). The initiative is rooted in a 1996 directive from the chairmen
of the Committee on House Oversight (the Committee on House
Administration) and the Senate Committee on Rules and
Administration to the Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate,
who work together toward establishing common data standards for
the exchange of legislative information. (See also Public Law 104197).
Following the "1999 House-Senate Bills, Resolutions, and
Amendments XML Feasibility Study," the Clerk�s DMS project team
extensively customized an XML editor for use by House staff. The
editor was first made available to the House Office of Legislative
Counsel (HOLC) in December 2001. In the earlier phases of the project, the editor was used to draft simple House bills and resolutions.
As the operation progressed, congressional documents with more
complex formats that conform to current and historic styles for laws
have been added to the editor�s functionality. HOLC drafts over 98%
of their introduced and reported non-appropriations-related bills,
resolutions, and amendments in XML. In 2005 the XML editor was
deployed to the Enrolling Clerks and Bill Clerks in the House Office
of Legislative Operations. The Enrolling Clerks prepare engrossed
and enrolled measures in XML, and the Bill Clerks are able to make
hand-corrections to introduced measures before they are exchanged
with GPO. All XML documents are exchanged and processed by
GPO and LOC. When the XML editor cannot be used, documents are
drafted or edited in the original GPO proprietary system.
As described under the Senate Legislative Information System
(LIS) section of this report, the production and exchange of legislative
XML documents is a joint effort. Collaboration on common standards is part of an ongoing effort to utilize the same tools, such as
those employed for converting files from XML to the GPO proprietary format and creating and editing tables.
A common style sheet is used to display XML measures on the
Web. As of October 2005, more than 6,200 XML measures are on the
LOC�s websites (THOMAS/LIS). Before the XML documents are
transferred from GPO to the LOC, metadata is added to the XML document to provide better search and retrieval capabilities. The current
metadata standard used is Dublin Core (http://dublincore.org).
Work has begun on formatting requirements to produce the House
portion of the Congressional Record in XML. To date, House Roll Call
data in XML is transferred to GPO for inclusion in the Congressional
Record. Future plans include the creation and exchange of additional
legislative documents in XML, including conference report language,
appropriation amendments, committee reports and hearings, House
calendars, and journals.
An additional goal of the House DMS Initiative is to integrate document information (House DMS) with the House legislative tracking
system (LIMS) in order to reduce redundant data entry and improve
the quality of information that is exchanged among the various
organizations and systems during the legislative process. Internally,
the interface between DMS and LIMS is called "Legislative Transfer,
Reuse, and Document Exchange," or LegisTRADE.
To begin these efforts, the Bill Clerks� component of LegisTRADE
was developed and deployed in 2002. This system has decreased the
amount of time needed for the nightly processing of introduced
measures, improved accuracy of data entry into LIMS, and eliminated the need for GPO to rekey information. The second effort was the
development and deployment of the Daily Digest in XML in 2005.
The new application utilizing the XML editor retrieves data from
LIMS to create an almost automatic Daily Digest. This new applica
tion eliminates the manual processes used to create the Daily Digest,
allows the Digest Clerk to concentrate on content as opposed to format, increases the accuracy of the information, and reduces the
dependency on external sources of information to validate the Daily
Digest.
E. Senate Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs (HSGA)
Electronic Archiving Project
During August 2004 history was made when the Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee determined to
embark on an electronic archiving project. Prompted by the daunting
task of conducting ten hearings during the August recess to prepare
for the Homeland Security legislation, the committee worked with
NARA to develop a protocol for electronic document archiving to
accommodate the staff who would not have time to print and file
documents. Because of the compressed time span and the numerous
individuals detailed to the committee for the hearings, it was feared
that significant documents could be lost.
The Chief Clerk, committee archivist, and systems administrator
devised a strategy to capture the e-mails, attachments, and other electronic documents. The staff and detailees were briefed and encouraged to move significant messages to the archives folder where the
archivist would convert the emails to HTML and categorize them by
topic. Personal emails were not included. The archivist also accessed
the network drives of majority and minority staff to archive relevant
memos, analysis papers, power point presentations, and spreadsheets, which ordinarily would not be saved. The staff arranged and
combined these documents with emails to provide a full spectrum of
issues concerning homeland security and intelligence reform. After
reviewing all the files, the archivist transferred them to CD-ROMs,
and the discs were transferred to NARA. In 2024 and 2025, when the
documents will be opened, the public should not experience any difficulty in seeking and accessing the pertinent materials due to the
exemplary work performed by the HSGA Archivist. It is hoped that
other committees will adopt these procedures. On the recommendation of the Advisory Committee, a "lessons learned" report was distributed to all Senate committees (see Appendix A).
F. Senate Document Management System for Senate Offices
The Senate Document Management System is responsible for
printing, graphics, and direct mail operations within the Office of the
Senate Sergeant at Arms and provides archiving services to the
Senate community. The office recently added a web-based system
that allows offices to search and retrieve documents right from the
desktop. At present the system is retaining electronic data for twenty Senate offices, with fourteen using the system on a daily basis.
Large amounts of data can be stored in the document management
system. When a senator retires, the office data is saved on CDs or
DVDs and can be sent to the Member�s designated repository for
preservation and access to researchers.
The system is an open-source system fully secured and maintained
by the Senate Computer Center. Documents containing metadata
and indexing terms that include pointers to the actual documents can
be scanned and placed into the system. The system also can generate
microfilm in addition to CDs thus creating long-term preservation
copies of documents, which complies with NARA standards for
transporting databases to NARA.
The Senate Historical Office is using the system to produce security back-up copies of its historical subject files. Committees have used
the system to produce security copies of their mark-up transcripts
and other documents.
Other Senate Committee Electronic Archiving
In August 2005 the Senate Judiciary Committee experimented with
electronic archiving of emails relating to the first Supreme Court
nomination of the Internet age. Senate and committee archivists and
systems administrators devised a filing scheme for emails whereby
the archivists and systems administrators setup pre-designated filing
categories for the staff to follow. Once the nomination had been completed, the protocol called for staff to archive relevant emails in electronic format. The design of the operation facilitated the review of
the nomination and streamlined staff filing of relevant documents.
III. PRESERVATION OF AND ACCESS TO
MEMBERS� RECORDS
During the past six years the Advisory Committee has focused
attention on improving the preservation of and access to Members�
records and has served as a catalyst for several significant projects.
A. Congressional Papers Roundtable
of the Society of American Archivists
and the Advisory Committee Task Forces
Following the publication of the Third Report of the Advisory
Committee in December 2000 containing recommendations aimed at
strengthening the management and preservation of Members�
papers, the Congressional Papers Roundtable (CPR) of the Society of
American Archivists held a forum at the U.S. Capitol on August 29,
2001. The forum looked at two of the Advisory Committee�s recommendations: "Improving Archival Practices on Capitol Hill" and
"Developing Public Policy Research Centers." Two panels of experts
in each of the areas presented commentary and insights. The audience and panelists then broke into two focus groups to devise recommendations. The forum was very well attended by both archivists
and congressional staff.
Final recommendations included:
First: To facilitate significant improvements in archival/records
management.
Encourage offices to add professional archivists or records
managers to their staffs, or train current staff to perform the
duties.
Provide Members with a sample archivist/records manager
job description to facilitate hiring such professionals.
Enlist the support of Members with staff archivists to generate
interest among other Members.
Devise records management baseline criteria for offices to use
to evaluate their effectiveness.
Provide records management briefings to new offices.
Urge Members to designate a repository early in their careers
in order to commence a cooperative relationship designed to
strengthen records management and preserve important
records.
Second: To promote a better understanding of the vital role that
public policy centers play in making congressional collections
available for researchers and in providing public programs.
Develop a working definition of "public policy center."
Create a roster of such centers.
Enlist the help of state historical records advisory boards to
encourage the development of centers in states that lack them.
Produce a pamphlet for new Members explaining their role in
preserving their papers.
Create a task force to explore ways to fund preservation of congressional and public policy documentation.
In December 2001 the Advisory Committee responded by creating
two task forces. One group reviewed records management recommendations while the other examined public policy center proposals.
The task force leaders reported to the Advisory Committee in June
2002. The records management task force produced a sample position description for a congressional staff archivist/records manager, a
baseline records management standards checklist, and a pamphlet
for new Members. All of the recommendations have been incorporated into the records management guidance provided to Members
during orientation and subsequently to staff through the handbooks
and briefings. The public policy task force put forth the proposal that
a nonpublic entity outside of the Advisory Committee would be better suited to devise a definition and roster of public policy centers,
and it felt that the Congressional Papers Roundtable (CPR) would be
the suitable organization to work on these projects.
Subsequently, the CPR produced a working definition of public
policy centers that was incorporated into the guidance given to
Members regarding selecting an archival repository. The CPR also is
working on management guidelines for congressional collections, the
purpose of which is to present standards by which a repository can
measure its success in acquiring, preserving, and making use of congressional collections. A roster of repositories specializing in congressional documentation was created and is used to identify likely
repositories for deposit of Members� papers.
B. Member Records Management Guidance
The Office of History and Preservation (OHP) in the House of
Representatives has revamped the records management manual distributed to Member offices. Previously the manual was titled
"Closing a Congressional Office." OHP wanted to have a records
management manual that would incorporate all facets of a Member�s
career. Additional topics covered include setting up a filing scheme
and the availability of courtesy storage facilities for sitting Members.
The title of the manual is Records Management Manual for Members of
the U.S. House of Representatives. Separate brochures for Members
have been developed on specific topics, for example, selecting a
repository library and preparing a deed of gift. These publications
are currently being reviewed by the Clerk of the House�s Office of
Publications Services. Once approved, the manual and brochures
will be professionally printed. The current records management
manual for Members is available in hard copy and on the Clerk�s
internal website.
As an additional service, OHP provides consultations with
Member offices upon request. Members receive a letter from the
Clerk offering archival assistance when they announce their intention
to leave the House or have not been re-elected. Enclosed with the letter is OHP�s records management manual for Members and contact
information for follow-up discussions. The House Archivist has participated in the Chief Administrative Officer�s (CAO) Transition
Briefings for departing Member staff as well as a session for departing Members titled "Life After Congress" organized by the U. S.
Association of Former Members of Congress. For the first time at the
beginning of the 109th Congress, the Clerk sent letters and a copy of
the records management manual to new Members offering archival
assistance and consultation sessions if requested.
The Senate continues to publish the Records Management Handbook
for United States Senators and Their Archival Repositories together with
an accompanying pamphlet, Senators� Papers: Management and
Preservation Guidelines. These basic resources are complemented by
an Opening a Senate Office Checklist that is distributed to newly elected Senators during orientation. Additionally, when a Member
announces retirement, the office and the repository receive a Closing
a Senate Office Checklist that provides comprehensive guidance including a time-line, detailed instructions and forms for archiving electronic records, and other information concerning scheduling, electronic document archiving, and equipment returns. The Senate
Archivist meets with individual offices to review the procedures and
conducts a basic records management seminar.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005 contains a provision
whereby departing Senators can request funds to pay expenses for
transporting their official records and papers from the District of
Columbia to any location designated by the Senator in his/her home
state. These procedures are in conformity with those employed by
the House and encourage the preservation of records. Since the
expense to ship the collection does not come from the individual
office account, Senators no longer need to choose between shipping
their papers and paying office staff.
C. The Association of Centers for the Study of Congress (ACSC)
The Center for Legislative Archives Director suggested in 2002 that
a conference of congressional policy centers be held. The Director
met with an eager audience of congressional policy centers directors
and members of the Congressional Papers Roundtable (CPR) who
were thinking about establishing their repositories as congressional
policy centers. It was a natural evolution of ideas and projects of the
Advisory Committee, CPR members, and a growing number of congressional policy center directors looking for ways to connect with
and learn from each other. The Advisory Committee has followed
the development of this organization with much interest because it
had long regarded Members� papers as worthy of preservation due to
their value for the study of Congress� role in the creation of public
policy.
The initial gathering was held during May 2003 in Shepherdstown,
West Virginia, at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies.
Meeting attendees discussed possible goals of the organization.
These included:
Collaborate on educational programs.
Collaborate with American Political Science Association, U.S.
Association of Former Members of Congress, Congressional
Papers Roundtable, American Historical Association,
Organization of American History to produce standards for
Members papers.
Sponsor a research conference.
Identify research topics and jointly build a collection of on-line
documents.
Encourage former Members of Congress to be speakers.
Create a web site with links to other centers.
Support broad policy studies.
Explore ways to find more resources for the community of congressional centers.
Promote the value of centers to Members of Congress and
inform them of the mission and programs offered by centers.
Participate in programs that take advantage of the Capitol
Visitor Center.
At the annual meeting of the Congressional Papers Roundtable
(CPR) in 2003, CPR members also discussed possible areas where an
association of centers could be effective.
These included:
Encourage the development of centers in every state because
congressional collections at present are not geographically dispersed to all areas of the country.
Compile guidelines on how to develop a center in the event
there are institutions interested in developing congressional
resources.
Assist with improving funding sources, or become involved
with seeking funds, because funding for preservation of congressional collections is so uneven and irregular.
Collaborate on specific educational programs.
Investigate integrating the CPR congressional repository
guidelines into an association�s programs.
Participants at the Shepherdstown conference established a steering committee which was charged with six tasks:
Develop a mission statement (reproduced in Appendix X).
Recommend a name.
Establish a listserv.
Set goals and objectives.
Develop a business model.
Create a website.
The steering committee formulated a mission statement during the
initial meetings and named itself the Association of Centers for the
Study of Congress (ACSC). During the initial meeting, the committee adopted a set of by-laws, and at a second conference held in May
2004 at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, the committee elected a slate of officers. The committee also created a new web-
site (http://www.congresscenters.org), and defined goals and objectives. By the third conference, held in May 2005, the membership had
grown from 29 at the initial meeting to 47 registrants representing 29
centers. A committee of the ACSC is pursuing filing with the IRS for
501c(3) tax exempt status, and a second committee is investigating
the implementation of a dues structure to fund future conferences
and other activities. A third committee is compiling a list of educational products available from member centers in an effort to organize various resources. The conferences have been notable for bringing together the finest historians and political scientists writing and
teaching congressional history and giving them the opportunity to
apprise ACSC of ways to improve access to resources.
One very high priority of the ACSC is to work on ways to improve
funding both for the preservation of congressional collections and to
improve access to them. To further these goals, officials from the
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) were invited to brief
conference attendees on various types of grants. An ACSC committee is investigating the universe of NEH grants and will make a recommendation on how to proceed. Beginning in 2005 the ACSC has
established itself as a viable organization that will play an important
role in promoting a better understanding of Congress through the
preservation and use of the actual records of Members of Congress.
By the third conference, held in May 2005, the membership had
grown from 29 at the initial meeting to 56 registrants representing 42
centers. Committees were established to investigate implementation
of a dues structure and pursue filing for 501c(3) status. Another committee is compiling a list of educational products available produced
by member centers that could be used by other centers -- a pooling of
resources. The conferences have been notable for bringing together
the finest historians and political scientists writing and teaching congressional history today and giving them the opportunity to tell us
what they need in terms of sources and how we might improve
access to them.
The ACSC met for the first time outside of the Washington DC
region, at the University of Connecticut in Storrs during May 10-11,
2006. Conference sessions covered topics such as grants available to
research repositories, hidden riches in congressional collections,
secrecy and classified records in Members� papers, research value of
constituent correspondence, processing backlogs of collections,
donor relations, online exhibits, and online finding aids. The business meeting of the ACSC focused on conference registration fees,
membership dues, how conferences will alternate between
Washington, DC and a host institution, and how ACSC is filing for
non-profit status.
IV. NATIONAL ARCHIVES
AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATON
A. Building Renovation
The renovation of the National Archives Building was essentially
completed by the end of Fiscal Year 2005. The work included the
replacement of all major building systems (HVAC, ductwork, plumbing, electrical distribution, fire alarm, security systems) and upgrades
to the exhibit, public, research, and staff areas. The building was
brought into compliance with fire and safety codes through installation of required fire dampers, as well as the sealing of hidden open
shafts located behind walls. The completion of the project also
brought the Archives building into compliance with accessibility
requirements for all public, research, and staff areas, and the security
status of public entrances was upgraded to current standards.
Six major construction projects were required to complete the renovation. The construction started with the award of the initial demolition and swing space construction contract in February 2000, and
was completed in September 2001. The main renovation contract was
awarded in May 2001, and ran through September 2005. In addition,
other contracts included the design and construction of the security
vaults for the Charters of Freedom; the removal, restoration, and re-
hanging of the murals in the Rotunda; the construction of two electrical vaults under the Constitution Avenue lawns to facilitate the
electrical modernization; design and installation of fiber optic lighting for the Rotunda exhibit cases, and the lighting in the Rotunda and
the East and West Foyers. With the exception of the main renovation
contract, all other contractors have finished their portion of the project.
With the completion of the renovations, the public spaces and
research rooms have been reopened and the staffs have reoccupied
their offices. The contractor is working on correcting the "punch list,"
minor construction items that were identified during the inspection
and acceptance process. In addition, the contractor is completing a
$4.25 million change order that was issued to replace all of the stack
lighting. This work had not been included in the base renovation
because of cost issues, but NARA used repair and restoration funding provided on a yearly basis to support facility needs. The lighting
change order is projected to be completed in the third quarter of
Fiscal Year 2006.
The replacement of the bronze tops in the Rotunda for the Charters
of Freedom and replacement of the 14 side cases were deleted from
the base renovation contract due to difficulties in meeting aesthetic
and performance standards for these cases. The work is now proceeding on a separate track. The design of the new tops and their
opening/closing mechanisms, as well as the supporting sub-frames,
has been completed and is open for bids prior to manufacture and
assembly. The initial top for the Declaration of Independence is projected to be finished early in the 2nd quarter of Fiscal Year 2006 with
the remaining tops being completed in the 3rd quarter of Fiscal Year
2006. The installation will be scheduled sequentially so as not to
interfere with NARA�s public programs and high visitor seasons.
The renovation significantly improved the storage environments
for records throughout the building. The changes to the mechanical
systems will permit the records to be stored at the conservation recommended temperature (72�F with a maximum range of +/- 5�F)
and humidity (a set value between 35% and 50% relative humidity,
with a maximum range of +/- 5% from the set value) levels. All of
the storage stacks now have a chemical filtration system.
Congress, researchers, and the public will all benefit greatly from
the renovated National Archives Building. The records of Congress
are stored in an environmentally controlled records storage area with
greatly improved fire and security systems. The modern technical
infrastructure means more reliable elevator service and a vastly
improved electronic access system for the public. The modern
research and consultation rooms enable researchers to utilize all the
newest research resources available on the Internet. Opportunities
for exhibits, workshops, and other outreach initiatives are greatly
expanded, and NARA can reach a wider public interested in learning
about the importance of records and our nation�s history.
B. Report on Summer 2006 Flood
On the evening of Sunday, June 25, record-breaking rainfall in the
Washington, DC area caused flooding in several buildings along
Constitution Avenue. Floodwaters entered the National Archives
Building in the basement levels and theater. Emergency response,
buildings maintenance, and security crews worked around the clock
to clean, repair damage, and secure the building during the three-
week building closure. During this time, National Archives Building
employees reported to alternate work locations.
No records were damaged during the flood, and immediate actions
were taken to maintain temperature and humidity levels within
acceptable ranges while electrical crews worked to restore power and
air-handling equipment. Stack doors remained closed to prevent
humid air from entering records storage areas. Center for Legislative
Archives staff were allowed limited access to process emergency
loans to the Senate. Public exhibit areas reopened July 15; staff reoccupied the building on July 17; and researchers were allowed to
return on July 19. Building systems and operations returned to full-
service by late August.
30
V. THE U.S. CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER:
HISTORY, EDUCATION
AND INNOVATION
The U.S. Capitol with its stately dome is recognized as an architectural treasure and an international symbol for our form of government. As the nation has grown in size and complexity, the Capitol
has undergone numerous architectural alterations and technological
improvements that have been incorporated into the building to
improve congressional operations and better serve the people.
The Capitol has been built and re-built many times. George
Washington laid the cornerstone in 1793. The original Capitol building consisted of only the Senate wing that was first occupied by
Congress in 1800. During the War of 1812 British troops burned the
House and Senate wings, but by 1819 the Congress reconvened in the
newly restored Capitol. The building was enlarged and the present
dome built in the 1850s and 1860s. Subsequent enlargements included the Frederick Law Olmsted west terrace in the 1880s and an extension to the east front in the late 1950s and early 1960s. From the conversion of gas to electric lighting in the 1890s to the implementation
of modern computer technology, the staff at the Capitol has attempted to modernize the building and keep pace with the technological
needs of Congress and a growing nation.
Throughout its constantly evolving history, the Capitol has always
attracted visitors. In the 19th century no one could have anticipated
the current number of tourists from the United States and other countries from around the world who would come to the nation�s capital
to witness democracy in action. More than three million people visited the Capitol in 2000 alone, a three-fold increase from the one million that visited in 1970. It became evident by the 1990s that no 19th
century building that serves as a working office for hundreds of
Members and their staffs was equipped to accommodate an ever
increasing number of tourists.
Prior to initiating the construction of the visitor center, people waited in long lines in order to tour the Capitol, had to endure adverse
weather conditions, and lacked access to basic amenities. Visitors
needed better services, better accessibility, more opportunities for
education, and after the events of September 11, better security.
A proposal for a visitor center began to crystallize in the mid-1970s
with the issuance of a report entitled, "Toward a Master Plan for the
United States Capitol." In 1991 Congress authorized funding for conceptual planning. The need to upgrade and provide security was
underscored by the tragic shooting of two Capitol police officers in
1998. An updated plan was submitted in 1999 that lead to some preliminary funding. The events of September 11 provided the impetus
for additional funding from Congress and the groundbreaking ceremony took place in 2002.
The architects of the CVC carefully avoided disrupting the vistas
around the Capitol and sought to restore the original landscape
design of Frederick Law Olmsted. The architectural plan by RTKL
calls for a 580,000 square foot space to be constructed under the
Capitol�s east plaza. This enormous underground building on three
levels includes the Great Hall, a 550-seat cafeteria, a 17,000 square
foot exhibition gallery, two orientation theaters, an auditorium for
Members addressing large groups and for after-hours programs, gift
shops and bathrooms, and a long-needed secure, underground truck
delivery tunnel. The CVC also includes meeting and committee
rooms for the House and Senate. The public portion of the facility is
capable of handling up to 4,000 people at any given time and 15,000
or more visitors a day during peak season.
The facility affords visitors three different ways to learn about
Congress and the history and architecture of the Capitol. Visitors can
avail themselves of the opportunity of watching a 12-minute orientation film by Donna Lawrence Productions. The public also can take
a 40-minute Capitol tour and visit the exhibition gallery designed by
Ralph Appelbaum & Associates. Both resources are designed to give
the visitor a richer appreciation for the operations and responsibilities
of the legislative branch in our governmental system. However, the
Capitol itself with its collection of American art and the building�s
rich architectural history is really the crowning element of the whole
experience. It is considered by many to be the single most important
artifact of the United States.
The exhibition gallery highlights the workings and history of
Congress and the Capitol with original artifacts, 3-D models, videos
and interactive programs. The heart of the exhibition gallery is a
long, curving marble wall with inset, climate-controlled cases that
feature the precious documents of America�s national heritage
retained by NARA and the Library of Congress. The area, called the
wall of National Aspirations, will house historic documents that
highlight the ways Congress enabled the country to achieve its goals
in the areas of Unity, Freedom, General Welfare, Common Defense,
Exploration and Knowledge. Due to the delicate nature of many of
the documents, they will be rotated with other documents every four
to six months. The first showing includes such amazing pieces as the
Compromise of 1850 as introduced by Henry Clay, James Madison�s
Notes on the Bill of Rights, and the Day of Infamy Speech delivered
to Congress by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on December 8,
1941. The rotation of documents in the exhibits would not be possible without the generous cooperation of the Center for Legislative
Archives (NARA) and the Library of Congress. To enhance the experience of the public, the gallery will include two virtual theaters, one
each for the House and the Senate, where visitors will be able to see
live activities on the floor, as well as experience short programs on the
functions and cultures of the two bodies.
Planned to open in 2007, the CVC is now entering its final construction phase. Crews are busy installing mechanical, electrical and
plumbing systems, erecting interior walls, and installing utility lines
and connections to all fire and life safety systems. Masonry block
work is nearly complete and stone masons can now be seen throughout the facility installing some of the $35 million worth of finish stone.
The installation of the finished stone in the Great Hall is nearly complete and stonework is progressing in both orientation theaters. Later
this fall, scaffolds will be erected throughout interior spaces to allow
crews to complete work on ceilings, skylights and fire protection systems. In conjunction with the work inside, historic preservation contractors are re-installing the original Olmsted-designed lanterns,
fountains and seat walls that were carefully disassembled and
removed in 2002 to clear the way for excavation of the project site.
When completed, the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center will welcome and
be accessible to millions of visitors in a secure, educational, and convenient 21st century environment. The CVC will provide a dignified
and gracious entrance to a building steeped in history where
Members fulfill their oath and duties as set forth in Article I of the
Constitution.
34
VI. OUTREACH PROJECTS
A. American Originals: Traveling Exhibit
From 2001 to 2003 a major traveling exhibit from NARA, American
Originals: Treasures from the National Archives, toured the country
while the Rotunda of the National Archives Building was undergoing
renovation. The exhibit included such milestone documents as the
Louisiana Purchase Treaty, Thomas Edison�s patent for the light bulb,
and John F. Kennedy�s notes on his inaugural address. With the generous permission of the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the
Senate, the exhibit also included House and Senate treasures such as
George Washington�s First Inaugural Address and a petition from
Susan B. Anthony. The exhibit toured nine cities nationwide and was
visited by 485,939 people. During the three years the exhibit traveled,
it appeared at the following venues: New York Public Library, New
York, New York; Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago, Illinois;
Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio; Jimmy Carter Presidential
Library, Atlanta, Georgia; Union Station Kansas City, Kansas City,
Missouri; Witte Museum, San Antonio, Texas; Los Angeles Public
Library, Los Angeles, California; Museum of American Political Life
at the University of Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut; and Bank One
Center at Riverfront, Wilmington, Delaware.
B. The National Archives Experience: Public Vaults
One of the major accomplishments of the National Archives in the
last six years has been the creation of the National Archives
Experience. The new NARA museum programs links the five major
public spaces of the National Archives Building: The Rotunda for the
Charters of Freedom, which reopened in September of 2003; the
William G. McGowan Theater, reopened in September, 2004; the
"Public Vaults," opened in November, 2004; the Lawrence F. O�Brien
Gallery for temporary exhibits, opened in December, 2004; and the
Learning Center, scheduled to open by September, 2006. All of these
resources were created through congressional funding and authorization to renovate the National Archives building. The project also
benefited from the infusion of funds from public/private partnerships. The Foundation for the National Archives has raised more
than $18 million for components of the National Archives Experience,
including the restoration of the Rotunda murals and the construction
of the theater and exhibits. The physical result of this expansion was
the addition of more than 20,000 square feet of usable exhibit and
program space.
The benefit of these investments goes well beyond their measure in
size and cost. Attendance in FY 2005 was 1,003,014, which was a 40%
increase from previous years and marked the highest level of attendance in a decade. According to three separate surveys, the length of
visits nearly tripled in comparison to a similar 1990s study and more
than 90% of the visitors rated their experience as "very satisfied" or
"extremely satisfied."
The new National Archives Experience has already accomplished
a number of important educational objectives for NARA:
The renovation of the Rotunda allowed NARA to continuously display all four pages of the Constitution for the first time.
The renovation provided NARA the space to build an exhibit
that gives context for the Charters of Freedom, showed milestones in the creation of the Declaration of Independence, the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and focused on key developments affecting the interpretation of the Charters following
the Federal Period.
The McGowan Theater has become an important venue for
providing free public lectures, programs illustrating the works
of authors and filmmakers, and for NARA partnerships aimed
at improving civic literacy. Over 130 programs were held in FY
05 with an audience of over 6,000. NARA was particularly
proud to host Senator Robert C. Byrd, Congressman Roy Blunt,
and Congressman Steny Hoyer as the centerpiece of its
Constitution Day programs.
The O�Brien Gallery has already been the site of three exhibits:
an exhibit on presidential photography, an outreach exhibit on
teaching with primary resources, and an exhibit on Paris� place
in American history, created as part of the citywide presentation of "Paris on the Potomac."
The most important innovation in the National Archives
Experience was the creation of the "Public Vaults," NARA�s first permanent, interactive exhibit. This 9,000 square foot, award winning
venue allows visitors to journey into the stacks and vaults of the
National Archives to see the nation�s original documents and appreciate their importance in our history. Visitors can browse over 1,100
records from all three branches of government and all of NARA�s
records centers and Presidential libraries across the nation.
Important original records on display include George Washington�s
letters to Congress, the Acts of the First Congress, Abraham Lincoln�s
telegrams to his generals, and surrender documents from World War
II. The exhibit cases give the visitor the sense of being immersed in
the stacks and vaults of the Archives. Twenty-two computer kiosks
allow visitors to have a hands-on experience with records, search
immigration records like a genealogist, make a D-Day documentary,
or become a historian and examine important congressional debates.
With the addition of the "Public Vaults," the National Archives has
truly become a destination for visitors of all ages and all interests.
C. Exhibits and Films at the Capitol Visitor Center
One of the highest priorities of the Center for Legislative Archives
is to develop and support the educational content featured in the
public exhibition spaces in the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC). The
CVC provides the most visible and meaningful setting for the display
of House and Senate records preserved at the Center.
Center staff collaborated during the past six years with the staffs at
the CVC, Senate Historical Office, House Office of History and
Preservation, Office of House Historian, Library of Congress,
Architect of the Capitol, the Smithsonian, Ralph Appelbaum and
Associates, and Donna Lawrence Productions on this extraordinary
project. The Center�s major contribution has been to identify House
and Senate documents and appropriate federal records at NARA that
best illustrate the history and accomplishments of representative government in America.
Many others at NARA have provided support for the CVC exhibits
including the conservators in the Office of Preservation and the
museum specialists in the Center for the National Archives
Experience. They reviewed case designs, mounting systems, and
other technical exhibit issues, and their assistance will continue to be
critical to the preparation, transport, and mounting of documents
from NARA in the CVC.
D. Educational Publications and Workshops
The objective of the Center�s educational programs is to provide
enrichment materials for instructional programs focusing on the history of Congress. The Center�s publications feature facsimile copies
of historic House and Senate records and provide contextual material to facilitate their use. With assistance from a network of expert
teachers and congressional scholars, and the growing expertise at the
Center, the publications have developed into an invaluable resource
covering congressional history over a broad expanse of time.
The first publication, The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, highlighted
the significant issues and events during Jefferson�s tenure in office.
The second publication, Our Mothers before Us: Women and Democracy,
1789-1920, focused on women�s petitions to Congress and their active
engagement in the nation�s civic life before they gained the right to
vote. The current publication in development, Congress and the
Shaping of American History, a two-volume resource covering more
than two hundred years of history, explores Congress� role in the history of representative government and new perspectives on the
nation�s history.
The Center�s publication, Our Mothers before Us: Women and
Democracy 1789-1920, was first published in 1998 and the initial print-
run sold out almost immediately, and a second printing was released
in 2001. More than 4,000 copies have been distributed to public and
private high schools in Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, the
District of Columbia, and the metropolitan areas of Cleveland,
Philadelphia, and Boston. It also has been distributed to community
colleges in Mississippi (see Appendix B for a list of funders for both
publications).
The Center organized high-profile events in Louisiana and
Mississippi to promote the distribution of Our Mothers before Us. The
Louisiana event was held in late 2000 at the Old State Capitol in Baton
Rouge through the gracious support and assistance of Senator John
Breaux and Lois Breaux. The 2001 event in Mississippi was held in
conjunction with the annual Oxford Conference for the Book on the
campus of the University of Mississippi. The university�s Chancellor
served as moderator for the well-attended event.
The Center�s major outreach program has focused its efforts in
researching and drafting the first volume of Congress and the Shaping
of American History. The six-chapter work will explore the history of
the House and Senate, congressional powers and Congress� relationship with the executive and judicial branches of government, and
seminal events in American history through the Reconstruction Era.
The goal of the publication is to provide teachers resources with a
resource written from a congressional perspective.
The publication features facsimiles of House and Senate records
selected for their use in high school classrooms. Visual resource
materials included in the publication consist of maps, charts, graphs,
photographs, and reproductions of period art. The book incorporates
contemporary accounts from newspapers, memoirs, and diaries to
enable students to interact with primary documents. A narrative history of events, biographical information, and definitions of congressional processes and procedures provide general overview of the subject and helps place events and artifacts in historical context.
Volume one is slated for printing in 2006 and will include a variety
of instructional materials for teachers. The Foundation for the
National Archives has secured funding for a minimum print-run for
volume one (3,000 units) and is actively seeking state and national
partners to distribute the publication as widely as possible.
In conjunction with the preceding projects, the Center conducts
teacher workshops to provide instructors with methods and aids to
incorporate the Center�s congressional resources into existing curriculum programs. A draft of the publication was the featured educational resource at the 2004 "Institute on Congress and American
History," a "We the People" initiative supported by the National
Endowment for the Humanities, hosted by Humanities Texas at the
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. The chapter on the
War of 1812 was highlighted at the 2005 conference on "Teaching
Congress and the Presidency," held at the Howard H. Baker, Jr.
Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee, to explore the
Constitutional responsibilities and inherent tension between the legislative and executive branches over shared powers. The instructional unit on the Compromise of 1850 was featured at the "The Coming
of the Civil War" 2005 teaching institute hosted at the University of
Virginia and supported by the NEH. The publication also was previewed at the 2004 annual meeting of the National Council for the
Social Studies in a session on "Teaching about Congress."
The Center has hosted visits from Washington-area teachers who
receive training in the use of primary documents in the classroom as
part of their professional development programs. In the November
2005 issue of Social Education devoted to "Using Primary Source
Documents to Teach Civics" staff members contributed an article to
help teachers and students better understand Congress� legislative
procedures.
E. Conferences
During the last six years the Center has participated in a number of
conferences on Congress. In 2003 the Center was one of the principal
organizers of the meeting where the Association of Centers for the
Study of Congress (ACSC) was formed at the Robert C. Byrd Center,
and in 2004 Center staff attended the second ACSC conference at the
Woodrow Wilson Center.
In 2005 the Center hosted sessions for the third annual meeting of
ACSC. The ACSC promotes the preservation of material documenting the work of Congress and the personal papers of Members of
Congress. ACSC also supports programs that make materials available for research and teaching. The ACSC currently has 42 member
organizations located around the country and 47 representatives
from 29 member organizations attended the conference.
The two-day conference focused on collaborative approaches to the
scholarly and educational communities to promote awareness and
use of records relating to Congress. The Archivist of the United States
welcomed the group and encouraged the association to support an
educational mission. Panelists included historians and scholars from
Boston University, The George Washington University, Yale
University, and Ohio University, as well the Robert C. Byrd Center for
Legislative Studies, the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy,
The John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Policy, The
Humphrey Forum, and the Richard Russell Library for Political
Research and Studies. Panelists included representatives from the
Senate Historical Office, NARA and the Center for Legislative
Archives, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Architect
of the Capitol, and the Capitol Visitor Center.
As part of the 2005 annual meeting of the American Political
Science Association, the largest gathering of political scientists in the
world, the Center for Legislative Archives hosted a professional
development session entitled "Using Archival Sources in Legislative
Research: Choosing the Road Less Traveled." As part of their formal
training, political scientists generally receive little if any instruction in
the use of archival resources. In order to address the lack of instruction, the session provided an orientation to both the records of the
House and Senate held at the Center as well as records held by various congressional archives throughout the country. Center staff participated in a panel entitled "Locating Materials and Collections:
Center for Legislative Archives and Member Paper Collections."
Other panelists included the Senate Historian, the Chief of the
House�s Office of History and Preservation, and archivists from the
Congressman Moakley Archives and the Arizona Historical
Foundation.
Political scientists from several universities including The George
Washington University, Niagara University, California State
University, Suffolk University, Villanova University, Loyola College,
and The College of William and Mary participated in the 2005 panel
discussions. They provided examples of instructors in a variety of
subject areas who successfully used archival collections, research
strategies, the use of finding aids, archives as a teaching tool, and
funding archival research projects in their classrooms. The group
consensus was that congressional archives represent an untapped
source of data for political science research.
F. Anniversaries and Special Facsimile Packets
To observe special anniversaries, the Center has reproduced facsimiles of historic documents from House and Senate archives and
distributed them to Members of Congress and media outlets.
Facsimile packets have been created to commemorate the 125th
anniversary of Colorado statehood in 2001, the bicentennial of Ohio
statehood in 2003, and the 175th anniversary in 2003 of the establishment of the Capitol Police. In addition, the Center has produced a
number of specially-created facsimile packets for Members and committee staff, which feature House and Senate archival collections and
underscore the importance of modern record-keeping.
G. Internships
For more than a decade, the internship program at the Center for
Legislative Archives has provided opportunities for college students
to work in a professional setting, develop a wide range of research
skills, hone their writing abilities, and contribute to the Center�s educational programs. In addition to working with the Center�s official
records of the House and Senate, interns gain experience doing
research in original federal government records at NARA, the manuscript collections at the Library of Congress, and other repositories
holding congressional collections. They gain an understanding of the
multiple sources of documentation on Congress and the topics on the
congressional research agenda requiring further study, which has led
some to develop topics for Master�s theses and Ph.D. dissertations.
The Center has developed partnerships with a number of universities and internship programs to expand the scope and visibility of the
Center�s outreach projects. In 2005 Stanford University established a
"Stanford-in-Government" fellow at the Center, which is one of
eleven Washington-based institutions where these formal programs
have been launched. Stanford University competitively chooses its
fellows and funds the internships, as well as evaluates their professional experiences at the Center. In 2005 the first Stanford University
fellow served at the Center and conducted original research to support the development of Congress and the Shaping of American History.
Due to the success of Stanford�s program, the Center looks forward to
hosting new fellows in the coming years.
In recent years the Center has maintained close ties with the John
Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at Ohio State
University, the Washington Center for Academic Internships, and the
Washington Internship Program. Representatives from the Center
have attended intern fairs at the University of Tennessee and George
Mason University to promote the Center�s internship opportunities.
Since the last Advisory Committee report in 2000, the Center has
hosted 30 interns from a variety of colleges and universities, including undergraduates from Columbia University, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, Yale University, Aurora College, Grinnell
College, Muhlenberg College, Mount Holyoke College, University of
California at Santa Cruz, McGill University, University of Texas at
Austin, Princeton University, Bryn Mawr College, Johns Hopkins
University, Bates College, University of California at Los Angeles,
Hiram College, Cornell University, Brown University, Stanford
University, and Duke University. Graduate students from the
University of Wyoming and the John Glenn Institute at Ohio State
University also have volunteered as interns. Information about the
Center�s internship program can be found on the Center�s website.
VII. STATUS OF RECOMMENDATIONS
FROM THE FIRST THREE
ADVISORY COMMITTEE REPORTS
AND ANALYSIS OF
RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS
A. Maximizing Documentation of the Legislative Process.
1. Assess the informational and evidential values of congressional
committee records.
Status: The Center for Legislative Archives, the House Office of
History and Preservation, and the Senate Archivist are exchanging information concerning modern congressional records to
ensure adequate documentation of committee activities. As part
of this process, the Center prepares an annual compilation of
records transferred from Senate committees for the Senate
Archivist, and this annual accounting identifies any gaps in
records series. The Center�s records description project provides
periodic opportunities to evaluate the quality of documentation
in records housed at the Center.
In 2004 the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration
asked each committee to submit a report on its archiving activities
as part of committees� request for appropriations. These reports
provide a timely opportunity for the Senate Archivist and committee clerks to address records issues to ensure full and adequate
documentation of committee activities.
2. Evaluate the archival impact of technology on congressional documentation.
Status: The National Archives Electronic Records Archives
(ERA) will ensure the long-term preservation of electronic records
free from hardware and software dependency. The 9/11
Commission records present a challenge of preserving records in
a variety of formats that include document management systems,
e-mails with attachments, and digital video and audio records.
3. Identify and survey congressional electronic records systems.
Status: Offices in the Senate and House will continue to inventory congressional electronic records systems. The National
Archives will harvest websites from the 109th Congress in 2006.
4. Develop electronic records guidelines and standards.
Status: The National Archives and other agencies have developed electronic records guidelines and standards, which have
been included in House and Senate congressional records management manuals. The National Archives has expanded the
records formats it will accept for transferring historically critical
electronic records.
5. Assess value of e-mail.
Status: As part of the National Archives� e-Gov initiative and in
cooperation with other Federal agencies, the National Archives
has issued guidance intended to supplement existing requirements for transferring electronic records to NARA. This guidance
expands currently acceptable formats to allow the transfer of e-
mail messages and their attachments.
6. Work closely with the Electronic and Special Media Records
Services Division to preserve and copy electronic records to stable media.
Status: The Center for Legislative Archives collects and inventories electronic records received from House and Senate committees. The staff of the Electronic and Special Media Records
Services Division analyzes the records for conversion to more stable media. The ERA will assure their long-term preservation.
7. Develop on-site capability for electronic access and reference.
Status: On-site public access to the Internet is available at workstations in the new Robert Warner Research Center at the National
Archives.
8. Survey, schedule, and accession records from Legislative Support
Agencies.
Status: From 2001 to 2006, the Center for Legislative Archives
accessioned 370 cubic feet of records from legislative branch support agencies (Congressional Budget Office, Government Printing
Office, and Government Accountability Office). The Center currently preserves and makes available 45,505 cubic feet of records
from these agencies. In addition, the National Archives is working with the Congressional Research Service to create a records
schedule and will transfer records in the future.
9. Provide records management assistance and obtain records from
political party policy committees, congressional campaign committees, Legislative Support Organizations, and key caucuses.
Status: The Center for Legislative Archives will assist these
organizations on records issues to ensure the preservation of their
permanently valuable records at the appropriate repository. In
2004 the Center accessioned over 600 cubic feet of textual records
and over a terabyte of electronic data from the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the 9/11
Commission.
10. Solicit records from prominent congressional committee staff
members.
Status: The Center for Legislative Archives assists the House
and Senate Archivists in the review and evaluation of the papers
of prominent staff members to recommend their preservation at
the appropriate archival repository.
11.Encourage development of Congressional Oral History Projects
by archival institutions for purposes of documentation and collections develop and collect oral history interviews and research
interviews, and make them available on the Internet.
Status: The Center has placed online 116 oral history interviews
of Members and staff conducted by Distinguished University
Professor Emeritus Richard F. Fenno, Jr. of the University of
Rochester. The Center will continue to accept and place online
valuable research notes and oral history interviews conducted by
congressional scholars who wish to donate their interviews to the
Center.
12. Acquire interviews from U.S. Association of Former Members of
Congress at the Library of Congress.
Status: The Center encourages and supports the efforts of the
Association of Centers for the Study of Congress to place oral history interviews of Members online, including the interviews
deposited at the Library of Congress.
13. Encourage Members of Congress, prior to retirement or after six
years of service, to begin devoting specific and dedicated
resources to strengthen records management and establish preliminary intellectual controls over the records prior to their transfer.
Status: The Senate and House Archivists continue to work with
Members of Congress to improve records management within
Members� offices.
14. Endorse the development of statewide Public Policy Centers that
include a strong archival component with a focus on political and
public policy documentation.
Status: The creation of the Association of Centers for the Study
of Congress (ACSC) has contributed greatly to bringing historians, political scientists, and archivists together to focus on the
preservation of Members� papers and their use by scholars and
educators.
15. Encourage congressional committees to hire professional
archivists to assist with records management and archiving projects.
Status: A job description for archivists was produced as a result
of the Advisory Committee�s Third Report. Since that time, four
Senate committees have hired professional archivists to manage
records and provide archival expertise.
B. Preservation Priorities.
1. Irradiation Issue.
Status: The Advisory Committee recognizes that the irradiation
of congressional mail is a continuing preservation problem and
encourages the Legislative Mail Task Force to investigate new
technologies which properly irradiate but cause less damage to
congressional mail.
2. Ensure preservation of records in all formats.
Status: The Center for Legislative Archives works with the
preservation, special media, and electronic records offices in the
National Archives to ensure that congressional records are preserved in all formats.
3. Work to preserve and transfer to the Electronic and Special Media
Records Services Division special media records found in textual
records and create a special media data base for those records.
Status: Center for Legislative Archives regularly transfers special media records such as audio, video, and DVD to the
Electronic and Special Media Records Services Division at the
National Archives. The Center maintains a detailed finding aid
for transferred records.
4. Monitor technical issues related to videotapes of floor proceedings.
Status: The Center for Legislative Archives and other units in
the National Archives, including the ERA project, are involved in
planning for digital transmissions of floor proceedings and committee hearings from the House and Senate.
5. Systematically locate, segregate, and perform conservation work
on valuable congressional records.
Status: The National Archives Document Conservation Lab
continues to provide essential preservation services to the Center
and professional guidance and assistance to the CVC project staff.
The Conservation Lab played a critical role in the move of the leg
islative treasures from Archives I during the renovation. It continues to examine and treat documents selected for exhibition in
the CVC exhibits, including some of the most valuable records in
House and Senate holdings such as George Washington�s first
Inaugural Address and the Monroe Doctrine. The lab has also created special boxes and housings for bound volumes and the
Clifford Berryman political cartoon collection.
6. Complete filming of the records of the first fourteen Congresses.
Status: In 1995, the Center temporarily halted this microfilming
project to explore whether digitization would be a feasible and
cost-effective alternative. The Center concluded that digitization
of this volume of records was beyond its means and resumed the
microfilming project in 2001. To date, the Center has completed
filming the records of the first nine Congresses, House records
from the 10th Congress, and Senate records from the 11th
Congress. The records from the 10th Senate are currently being
filmed. The Center�s digitization efforts have been focused on
creating digital images of all treasure vault items and of documents that will be displayed in the CVC and other venues.
7. Holding maintenance work should focus on records of the 84th to
91st Congresses (1955-1971) and the thermofax records in those
series.
Status: Over the past six years, the Center has performed holdings maintenance and replaced thermofax copies within 4,800
cubic feet of House and Senate records. In total, Center staff has
screened over 8,500 cubic feet of records since 1996 to address the
problem of rapidly deteriorating and unstable media in records
from the 84th to the 91st Congresses, when the thermofax process
was in use. The staff is currently working its way through the
90th Congress records and the records of the House Un-American
Activities Committee, which were opened in June 2001 and have
become one of the most highly used series by researchers.
8. Have preservation work done on oversized records.
Status: Conservation work at the National Archives continues
on oversized congressional records, focusing on maps and other
large-scale items found among textual holdings that require flattening and placement in appropriate housings. The Conservation
staff has recently created custom housing for the Clifford K.
Berryman cartoons from the U.S. Senate Collection.
9. Have preservation work done on bound volumes
Status: Postponed. Because of the demands on the conservation laboratories during the renovation of the National Archives
Building, preservation work on bound volumes has been postponed until the completion of the renovation.
10. Develop a check-list of preservation criteria for Members who
wish to donate their papers to a research institution and recommend that these criteria be made available to grant-making agencies to give them a standard for assessing grant applications they
may receive for preserving particular congressional collections.
Status: A checklist was developed as a result of the Advisory
Committee�s Third Report.
11.Continue to develop Document Type Definitions (DTDs) for legislative documents and Extensible Markup Language (XML) for
data exchange throughout the legislative branch and as a means
for preserving electronic records.
Status: The production and exchange of XML documents is a
joint effort of the Senate, House of Representatives, Government
Printing Office (GPO), and Library of Congress. Legislative
branch XML standards are still evolving and each organization is
handling individual needs while collaborating on the common
standards so that documents can be exchanged.
12. Have a GS-12 conservator and conservator aid hired and dedicated solely to congressional records preservation work.
Status: Complete. The National Archives Preservation Office
has dedicated one full-time equivalent position to work on holdings of the Center for Legislative Archives. Conservators with a
wide range of expertise and special skills work on the records of
Congress as needed.
C. Access and Reference.
1. Digitize selected parts of the holdings and make available on the
Internet.
Status: A selection of congressional records is digitized and has
been posted on the Center for Legislative Archives website.
Additional digitized images are available to researchers by
request.
2. Work with congressional offices to document and preserve
Members� websites.
Status: The National Archives� web harvest is becoming the
most standardized way to capture the websites of congressional
offices at two-year intervals.
3. Continue the Standing Committees History Project.
Status: The Center for Legislative Archives has completed short
committee histories for every standing and select committee for
which records are open. These are available on-line in the
National Archives� Archival Research Catalog (ARC). The
Committee Resource Guides (CRG) series is the online successor
to the Guide to the Records of the United States House of
Representatives at the National Archives and the Guide to the Records
of the United States Senate at the National Archives. For each standing committee, the CRG includes a concise history, descriptions of
recently-opened records, names of chairmen and dates of tenure,
a list of subcommittees, and a bibliography of recent publications
relating to the committee. The CRG enable House and Senate
committees to monitor open archived records, provide
researchers a preview of available committee records, and are the
primary means for the Center to maintain intellectual control of
recently-opened committee records.
4. Prepare documentary publications.
Status: The Senate Historical Office has an active program to
produce documentary publications including the recently issued
Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations (McCarthy
Hearings 1953-54), 2003.
5. Declassify records.
Status: The Center responds to researcher requests for access to
classified information in congressional records by referring
records to the appropriate executive branch agency for declassification review under the provisions of Executive Order 12958 as
amended.
6. Create an information clearinghouse for the history of Congress.
Status: The Center for Legislative Archives maintains the
"Congressional Repositories at Archival Institutions" web pages,
an alphabetical listing of repositories and congressional collections with links to repositories� websites and finding aids.
7. Develop a Congressional Research Center with links to off-site
websites and databases with information about Congress.
Status: The renovated Congressional Research Center will provide Internet access for researchers to congressional resources and
repositories housing Members� papers.
8. Acquire book collections on congressional history.
Status: Beginning with the acquisition of the collections of John
Elleff and Roger Davidson, the Center has built a library of
approximately 3,000 books on congressional history. With the
completion of the National Archives Building renovation, the
library is located adjacent to the Central Research Room and the
Congressional Research Center. The Center will continue to pursue acquisition of other collections of retired congressional scholars through its ties with the academic community and with the
assistance of members of the Advisory Committee.
D. Outreach.
1. Create an educational resource project on the history of Congress
utilizing document facsimiles.
Status: Volume one of Congress and the Shaping of American
History is underway. Completed units have been reviewed by historians, congressional scholars, and educators; and the units have
been featured at teaching institutes and workshops. This resource
is slated for publication in 2006.
2. Encourages development and expansion of on-line exhibits documenting congressional history by NARA, the CVC, the Library of
Congress, and other archival repositories.
Status: The newly redesigned National Archives website features an ever-increasing number of on-line exhibits. The Center
for Legislative Archives regularly features on its website significant legislative records under "Featured Documents." Plans are
under development at the CVC to feature exhibits and education
activities on their website. ACSC member institutions are exploring a collaborative approach to create an on-line collection of congressional materials including official records and personal
papers.
3. Create Center webpage.
Status: Completed. Although this project was completed prior
to the Advisory Committee�s Third Report, NARA�s webpage
underwent two redesigns.
4. Continue to search and catalogue the records of Congress for state
and local history.
Status: Reference and outreach activities continue to identify
significant documents related to the history of states and localities. Selected documents have been featured on special tours of
the Center for Legislative Archives and reproduced as facsimiles
for Members of Congress and other guests.
52
APPENDIX A:
The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
Electronic Archiving Project Report of Elisabeth Butler,
Archivist, Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
When the Committee on Governmental Affairs began a national
intelligence overhaul in late July 2004, Senate Archivist Karen Paul
and I discussed the fact that because of the short time span allotted to
this major legislation, staffers and temporary assistants would probably use and produce more electronic records such as emails than
paper records. Archiving electronic records has been a longstanding
challenge, but the historic intelligence reform effort brought this
problem into greater focus.
At a meeting with the Chief Clerk, it was determined to alert all
staff to the need to file all relevant emails and attachments into
archive folders on Microsoft Outlook. Further, staff was asked to file
all relevant documents on their H drives into folders. All staff members were notified at the termination of their committee service that
the material on the H drive would be appraised and arranged by the
archivist in preparation for its transfer to the Archives.
The committee�s Systems Administrator gave me a small software
program to convert emails saved by staffers to HTML so I could read,
appraise, and transfer them to CDs. The National Archives came to
review our procedures and requested that we convert the word processing files, which were in many different software formats, into
PDF. This has established an electronic record format "protocol" for
Senate committees to follow.
The committee�s archiving project has reinforced the fact that new
technologies have expanded the definition of "record" beyond the
traditional paper sources. The material I found in the emails, attachments, and on staffs� H drives documented issue analysis,
staff/agency relationships, and input that does not consistently
appear in personal papers. This reveals that staff increasingly prefer
to use computers for most of their correspondence and memos, and
that a great deal of official Senate records remain in computer files.
Since this trend will continue to increase, it will become more problematic to rely solely on printed documents to record the work of
committee staffers.
The archiving system for electronic records as developed by the
Committee on Governmental Affairs and approved by the Archives
is not complicated and is an extension of traditional archiving proce
dures. The program requires a staff orientation process, staff teamwork with email and word processing management, regular follow-
ups with staffers, the oversight by a Systems Administrator, and optimally a professional archivist on staff. It was also helpful to have staff
familiar with the concept of archiving their records. My committee
had two previous archivists, and we have a Chief Clerk whose influence is critical.
I think other committees can learn from my experience. Chief
Clerks, as non-designated personnel, should understand how committees use and produce records in order to determine the best
archiving strategies. They should help staffers understand their obligations to preserve all types of documents. Systems Administrators
are essential because of their knowledge and daily interactions with
staff concerning email storage and document conversions.
Electronic archiving is necessary to comply with law 44 USC 2118
and Senate Standing Rules XI and XXVI. As the Governmental
Affairs Committee project has demonstrated, proper records management is essential to preserve committee history, and the protocol
is a practical computer space management system. Archiving emails
and electronic documents saves critical computer space and allows
staff to create new files for subsequent congressional sessions.
Additionally, properly archived electronic records afford staffers an
organized reference tool that improves office efficiency. The committee wants to stress the need to have a knowledgeable, responsible
individual on staff in order to ensure the preservation of all relevant
and substantive records. Some committees might require separate
record managers for Republican and Democratic staffers. Such an
arrangement ultimately brings credit to the committee as a responsible, orderly, and efficient organization.
APPENDIX B
FUNDING SOURCES
The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809
The Center�s first educational document publication has had two
printings totaling 6,000 units, and has been distributed to public and
private high schools in ten states: Arizona, Delaware, District of
Columbia, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania,
Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. This publication is currently out of
print.
FUNDING SOURCES
Thomas Jefferson University Wells Fargo Foundation
Jefferson Bank Tremont Trust
U.S. West Foundation Cafritz Foundation
Clark Foundation Steele Foundation
ARCO Foundation Samuel S. Johnson Foundation
TRW Foundation Harold Simmons Foundation
PacificCorp Phil Hardin Foundation
Western Communications Ms. Jeannette Cantrell Rudy
JCPenny (Individual)
Frito-Lay, Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Small
(Individual)
Our Mothers Before Us: Women and Democracy, 1789-1920
The Center�s second educational document publication is in its second printing and has been distributed to public and private high
schools in Boston, Massachusetts; Cleveland, Ohio; the District of
Columbia; Louisiana; Mississippi; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
Tennessee; and, Texas. Approximately 1,800 copies from the second
printing are available for sale or distribution.
FUNDING SOURCES
Fannie Mae Foundation George Gund Foundation
Southwest Airlines Cleveland Foundation
Ms. Foundation Cafritz Foundation
Michigan Federation of Teachers GMAC MortgageEntergy
Thomas Jefferson University Services, Inc.
Hospital Long Law Firm, LLP
Brielle Galleries Acadian Ambulance & Air
Nestl� USA, Inc. Med Service
Oracle Corporation United Parcel Service
State Street Bank and Trust The ESOP Association
Company Ms. Jeannette Cantrell Rudy
Brown Foundation (Individual)
LBJ Family Foundation Ms. Edna Hibel
(Individual)
APPENDIX C
BIOGRAPHIES OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
KAREN HAAS was nominated to be the 33rd Clerk of the House
of Representatives to replace Jeff Trandahl effective on November 18,
2005. Prior to this nomination, Haas served as a Floor Assistant to the
Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert, and has served Speaker
Hastert in that role since June of 1999. Her career in the House of
Representatives began in 1984, and she served ten years as the
Executive-Legislative Assistant to then-Minority Leader Bob Michel
(R-IL). She became the Director of Government Affairs for ABC/Cap
Cities in January of 1995 and later became the Senior Policy Analyst
for Disney in August of 1998.
JEFF TRANDAHL was appointed Clerk of the House of
Representatives on January 1, 1999, during the 105th Congress and
elected Clerk by the House of Representatives for the 106th Congress.
He resigned as Clerk on November 18, 2005. A native of Spearfish,
South Dakota, he began his professional career in 1983 as an aide to
U.S. Senator James Abdnor (R-SD). In 1987 he served Representative
Virginia Smith (R-NE) and the House Committee on Appropriations.
He served on the staffs of Representative Pat Roberts (R-KS) and the
Committee on House Administration from 1990 to 1995, when he was
appointed Assistant to the Clerk of the House. In 1996 he was
appointed Acting Chief Administrative Officer of the House until his
appointment in 1997 as Deputy Clerk of the House. Trandahl is a
graduate of Spearfish (SD) High School and received a B.A. from the
University of Maryland.
EMILY J. REYNOLDS of Nashville, Tennessee, was appointed
the 31st Secretary of the Senate on January 7, 2003. Prior to her
appointment as Secretary, Reynolds was the chief of staff for Senator
Bill Frist. She began her career in politics in 1980 as a special assistant
to Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. In 1985 she worked on the successful Senate campaign of then-Governor Kit Bond of Missouri. She
joined the Bush/Quayle presidential campaign in 1992 as deputy
director of national coalitions. Ms. Reynolds returned to her home
state of Tennessee in November 1993 to serve as deputy campaign
manager and finance director for Dr. Frist�s Senate campaign. During
Senator Frist�s first term in the Senate, Reynolds became his state
director. She then managed his successful reelection campaign in
2000. She became chief of staff for Senator Frist in January 2001
supervising Senator Frist�s Washington, D.C. and Tennessee offices.
Reynolds received a B.A. in political science and
television/radio/film from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri
in 1978.
ALLEN WEINSTEIN was appointed Archivist of the United
States in February 2005. Weinstein is an accomplished historian, and
prior to this appointment, he served at the IFES (International
Foundation for Election Systems). From 1985-2003, he served as
President of The Center for Democracy, a non-profit foundation that
he created in 1985 to promote and strengthen the democratic process,
based in Washington, DC. He was University Professor and
Professor of History at Boston University from 1985-89, University
Professor at Georgetown University from 1981-1984 and, from 1981
to 1983, Executive Editor of The Washington Quarterly at Georgetown's
Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 1966-81 he was
Professor of History at Smith College and Chairman of its American
Studies Program. Weinstein was a founding member of the Board of
Directors of the United States Institute of Peace and Chairman of its
Education and Training Committee in 1985, remaining a Director
until 2001, and now serves on the Chairman�s Advisory Council. He
was a founding officer of the International Institute of Democracy in
Strasbourg from 1989 to 2001. Weinstein has authored numerous
scholarly books and articles, but is especially known for his ground-
breaking work on Soviet espionage in the U.S. His most applauded
work to date is titled Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case.
RICHARD A. BAKER has directed the U.S. Senate Historical
Office since its creation in 1975. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the
University of Maryland and masters� degrees from Columbia
University and Michigan State University. Baker has taught courses
in congressional history for Cornell University and the University of
Maryland. Before joining the Senate's staff, he served as a specialist
in American history at the Library of Congress. He is the author of
many articles related to Senate history and several books, including a
biography of New Mexico Senator Clinton Anderson and a one-volume history of the Senate. An occasional guest on C-SPAN, Baker
most recently assisted that network with its 25th anniversary special
programming on the history of the Capitol. He also served on the
content development team for the exhibition gallery of the Capitol
Visitor Center.
ROBERT REMINI was appointed Historian of the U.S. House of
Representatives in 2005. He is both a Professor of History Emeritus
and a Professor of Research Emeritus at the University of Illinois at
Chicago. He received his doctorate degree from Columbia
University in 1951 and has taught at Fordham University and
Columbia University. Since 2002, he has served as the Distinguished
Visiting Scholar of American History in the John W. Kluge Center at
the Library of Congress. In addition to his three-volume biography
of Andrew Jackson, he is the author of biographies of Henry Clay,
Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams, and Joseph Smith. A recognized authority on the Jacksonian era, Remini has completed a history of the House of Representatives that was mandated by Congress.
The book is entitled The House: The History of the U.S. Representatives
which was published in April 2006.
JOSEPH COOPER is Professor of Political Science at Johns
Hopkins University and has served in this position since 1991. He
has previously served as Autrey Professor of Social Sciences and
Dean of Social Sciences at Rice University, Staff Director of the U.S.
House Commission on Administrative Review (Obey Commission),
and Provost at Johns Hopkins University. His publications include
several books and numerous articles on the development of congressional structures and processes, congressional elections, party voting
in Congress, legislative-executive relations, changing patterns of congressional leadership, and the decline of trust in Congress. He also
has served as an Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia of the American
Legislative System and an Advisory Editor of The Congress of the United
States, 1789-1989.
PAUL GHERMAN is University Librarian and Director of
Central Library at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He
has served in this capacity since 1996. Prior to this position he was
Director of Libraries at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He has
written extensively on digital libraries. He holds a bachelor�s degree
in English and history from Wayne State University and a master�s
degree in library science from the University of Michigan.
TIMOTHY JOHNSON is Associate Librarian and Curator of
Special Collections and Rare Books at the University of Minnesota.
Prior to this position he directed archives and college libraries in
Chicago and Lake Forest, Illinois. He serves on the governing board
of Metronet, a Minnesota multi-type library system, is a past member
of the Steering Committee of the Government Records Section of the
Society of American Archivists (SAA), and former editor of the
Government Records Section newsletter. In addition to SAA, he is a
member of the American Library Association (ALA), its Rare Books
and Manuscripts Section, and the Minnesota Library Association. He
holds a masters degree in theological studies from North Park
Theological Seminary (Chicago) and a master�s degree in library science from the University of Minnesota. His research interests are var
ied and he has published works in library, immigration history, and
church history fields and produced a number of exhibits in the areas
of art, literature, religion, and politics.
ALAN C. LOWE is Executive Director of the Howard H. Baker, Jr.,
Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee. Prior to this
position, Lowe served in the Office of Presidential Libraries at the
National Archives and Records Administration where he helped to
oversee 12 presidential libraries and projects throughout the nation.
During this time, Lowe also served as interim Director for the
Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York.
Before joining the Office of Presidential Libraries, Lowe was an
archivist at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley,
California.
SUSAN PALMER is Professor of History at Aurora University.
Recently she was appointed curator of the university�s Jenks
Memorial Collection of Adventual Materials. She received her Ph.D.
in history from Northern Illinois University in 1986. Her teaching
experience and research interests span the various fields of cultural,
social, and religious history, and she has published in immigration
history. She served as a commissioner on the Historic Preservation
Commission for Aurora, Illinois, 1981-1986, and as president of the
Aurora Historical Society, 1990-91. She is currently writing a book on
the early decades of Aurora University and its connections to the
nineteenth-century Millerite Movement.
GUY L. ROCHA is the Nevada State Archivist and has served in
that position since his appointment in 1981. From 1976 to 1981 Rocha
worked with the Nevada Historical Society in Reno. He received his
bachelor�s degree from Syracuse University in Social
Studies/Education in 1973, was awarded his master�s degree in
American Studies from San Diego State University in 1975 and pursued post-graduate work in history at the University of Nevada,
Reno.
APPENDIX D
STATUTE ESTABLISHING ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Public Law 101-509-November 5, 1990
"CHAPTER 27 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE RECORDS
OF CONGRESS
"Sec.
"2701. Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress.
"2702. Membership; chairman; meetings.
"2703. Functions of the committee.
"2704. Powers of the Committee.
"2705. Compensation and travel expenses.
"2706. Administrative provisions.
�" 2701. Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress
"(a) There is established the Advisory Committee on the Records of
Congress (hereafter in this chapter referred to as the Committee).
"(b) The Committee shall be subject to the provisions of the Federal
Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.), except that the Committee
shall be of permanent duration, notwithstanding any provision of
section 14 of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
�" 2702. Membership; chairman; meetings
"(a)(1) The Committee shall consist of the eleven members
including-
"(A)(i) the Secretary of the Senate;
"(ii) the Clerk of the House of Representatives;
"(iii) the Archivist of the United States;
"(iv) the Historian of the Senate; and
"(v) the Historian of the House of Representatives; and
"(B) six members of whom one shall be appointed by each of
the following:
"(i) the Speaker of the House of Representatives;
"(ii) the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives;
"(iii) the Majority Leader of the Senate;
"(iv) the Minority Leader of the Senate;
"(v) the Secretary of the Senate; and
"(vi) the Clerk of the House of Representatives.
"(2) Each member appointed under paragraph (1)(B) shall have
knowledge or expertise in United States history, archival management, publishing, library science, or use of legislative records.
"(b) The Secretary of the Senate shall serve as Chairman during the
two-year period beginning on January 1, 1991, and the Clerk of the
House of Representatives shall serve as Chairman during the two-
year period beginning January 1, 1993. Thereafter, such members
shall alternate serving as Chairman for a term of two years.
"(c)(1) Members of the Committee referred to in subsection
(a)(1)(A) shall serve only while holding such offices. Members
appointed to the Committee under subsection (a)(1)(B) shall serve for
a term of two years, and may be reappointed without limitation. The
initial appointments for such terms shall begin on January 1, 1991.
"(2) Any vacancy on the Committee shall not affect the powers of
the Committee. Any vacancy in an appointed position on the
Committee shall be filled in the same manner in which the original
appointment was made.
"(d)(1) No later than thirty days after the date on which the first
session of the 102d Congress begins, the Committee shall hold its first
meeting. Thereafter, the Committee shall meet semiannually or at the
call of a majority of its members.
"(2) Seven members of the Committee shall constitute a quorum,
but a lesser number may hold hearings.
"�2703. Functions of the Committee
The Committee shall
"(1) review the management and preservation of the records of
Congress;
"(2) report to and advise the Congress and the Archivist of the
United States on such management and preservation; and
"(3)(A) no later than December 31, 1991, conduct a study and submit a report to the Congress on
"(i) the effect any transfer of records of the National Archives and
Records Administration from facilities located in Washington, DC, to
any location outside of Washington, DC, shall have on the management and preservation of the records of Congress; and
"(ii) the five year plan for the management and preservation of
the records of Congress; and
"(B) no later than December 31, 1995, conduct a study to update the
report submitted under subparagraph (A)(ii), and submit a report to
Congress.
"�2704. Powers of the Committee
"(a) For purposes of carrying out the duties referred to under section 2703, the Committee or, on the authorization of the Committee,
any subcommittee or member thereof, may hold such hearings, sit
and act at such times and places, take such testimony, and receive
such evidence as is appropriate.
"(b) The Committee may secure directly from any department or
agency of the United States such information as the Committee may
require to carry out the duties referred to under section 2703. Upon
request of the Chairman of the Committee, the head of such department or agency shall furnish such information to the Committee.
"�2705. Compensation and travel expenses
"A member of the Committee may not be paid compensation for
service performed as a member of the Committee. However, members of the Committee shall be allowed travel expenses, including per
diem in lieu of subsistence, at rates authorized for employees of agencies under subchapter 1 of chapter 57 of title 5, United States Code,
while away from their homes or regular places of business in the performance of service for the Committee.
"�2706. Administrative provisions
"(a) Upon request of the Committee, the head of any Federal
agency is authorized to detail to the Committee, on a nonreimbursable basis, any of the personnel of such agency to assist the
Committee in carrying out the duties referred to under section 2703
and such detail shall be without interruption or loss of civil service
status or privilege.
"(b) For purposes of supporting the Committee, the Archivist may
obtain the services of experts and consultants in accordance with the
provisions of section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, but at rates
for individuals not to exceed the daily equivalent of the minimum
annual rate of basic pay payable for GS-16 of the General Schedule
under section 5332 of such title."
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