ANOTHER RUMOR BITES THE DUST!!!!!!!
Guess you missed that same message last week and the rebuttle to same.
I've attached a copy of it to this message that was posted by Mary
Grindol last week.
Joan Bakeman wrote:
>
> Fellow Researchers,
> Perhaps this information has already been posted, but it was the first I've
> heard. It was sent to me by a faithful volunteer at the Seattle, WA National
> Archives
> "John H. Carlin, former Gov. of Kansas, and now the country's top archivest,
> is proposing a program to close all 12 of the regional archive locations.
X-Message: #1
Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 11:26:17 -0400
From: magrindol@juno.com (Mary A Grindol)
Subject: Re: National Archives Alert
Bonny,
The rumor about John Carlin, U.S. Archivist wanting to close all
the
regional archives is absolutely not true. Please send it no further.
Mr. Carlin has written guest editorials in the National Genealogical
Society Newsletter, the Federation of Genealogical Societies, and the
Genealogical Helper. Following in a complete quote from NGS Newsletter
March/April 1997, Vol. 23, No. 2:
"Ready Access to Essential Evidence: A Commitment to Genealogist
and All Users of the National Archives and Records Administration
"By John Carlin, Archivist of the United States.
"I have received many letters from genealogist recently, and
they
all begin much like this one, 'It has come to my attention that plans
are
being made to close all our regional branches of the National
Archives...' This is absolutely not true. The regional archives
remain
a vital part of the National Archives and Records Administration.
" NARA is in the midst of making many immediate and long-term
changes in the way it operates, and those changes may have led to some
confusion about the status of the regional archives. I want to use this
opportunity to explain the changes we are making and what they mean for
genealogists in particular. Genealogists are one of our largest
constituencies, so it is important to keep our lines of communication
open.
" When I became Archivist in June 1995, I inherited an agency in
trouble. spiraling space costs, escalating record volume, increasing
user demands, and rapidly accelerating technological changes threatened
to overwhelm NARA and drastically impair the quality of services we
could
provide to the government and to the public. To address these problems,
I led a Strategic Directions Initiative that resulted in a refocused
mission and vision for NARA, and a new, long range Strategic Plan.
"NARA's mission is to ensure, for the Citizen, and the Public
Servant, for the President and the Congress and the Courts, ready access
to essential evidence. Essential evidence documents your rights as
American citizens, the actions of Federal officials, and our national
experience. Part of our mission is to determine what evidence is
essential and to ensure that government creates that evidence. In
addition, we must make it easy for you to access essential evidence
regardless of where it is, or where you are, for as long as needed.
"These principles lie at the core of the new Strategic Plan I
issued last summer. A complete copy of the plan is available on our
website at <http://www.nara.gov/nara/vision/naraplan.html>. The plan
was
developed with input from NARA staff throughout the country as well as
representatives from our external constituents, including several from
the genealogical community. Because it is a strategic plan, we could
not
incorporate all the ideas and suggestions we heard, but we did take them
into account and try to strike a balance between the needs of our users
and the resources we have to meet those needs.
"My first priority upon completing the plan was to reorganize
NARA's office structure to improve services to federal agencies and the
public and better coordinate internal operations and communications. As
Part of this recent reorganization, regional archives and federal
records
center have been consolidated into regional centers. This will improve
our efficiency and coordination to that NARA's limited resources can be
allocated better to ensure essential evidence is identified, preserved,
and readily accessible to more people, including genealogists. The
combination of the regional archives and records centers is an
administrative change that should be transparent to our public users,
but
it also may have given rise to the rumors about the abolishment of the
regional archives. I can assure you the regional archives are not being
abolished and are an important link in providing ready access to
essential evidence.
"I must stress, however, that for NARA to operate more
cost-effectively, space costs must be reduced. One of the long-term
strategies we are investigating is the possible consolidation or
relocation of some of our regional archives in a smaller number of
appropriate archival facilities operated by NARA. In addition to space
costs, we will be looking at user needs in each region to determine how
we can best tailor our services to meet those needs. Should
consolidation of our archival records become necessary, we will ensure
that our microfilm collections heavily used by genealogists remain
accessible in the locations where the records are now. We plan to do
that by developing partnerships with other institutions and expanding
electronic access, but if we find no suitable alternative that meets the
needs of our users, NARA will continue to administer those collections.
"I am committed to our mission of ready access to essential
evidence for genealogists and all researchers. We have to achieve that
mission in the most cost-effective and efficient ways possible, but we
also are dedicated to providing you, regardless of your location, with
the best in customer service. I believe we can do both."
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