Top Archives in College Park, United States

This place is the shizz for primary sources on U.S. governmental and military history. Read the website thoroughly and nothing will surprise you. The employees are mostly very courteous and helpful. But you know all this already.

Here are some things you don’t know if you haven’t gone but that you should know before you arrive to hammer out that sick research project of yours:

1. Air Force One will rust out before this building sees a single spot of moisture damage. The textual reading room was so dehumidified I essentially spent a week reading documents at 35,000ft so far as my sinuses and skin were concerned. Maybe bring eye drops, lotion—not into the reading room, fools!—and stay hydrated on that cool drinking fountain water. It took me two days to realize I didn’t have a sore throat and wasn’t actually getting sick.

2. In the textual reading room keep your head down and don’t attract the attention of the “Guardians”. These NARA employees have the same practical responsibilities as everyone else including meandering around the room to make sure you’re not being an idiot with the National Archives, but there’s a fundamental difference between the two. The Guardians survey the researchers in the reading room not like a loving hen checking in on her chicks like most of the help but like a starving lion scans a herd of unsuspecting gazelles. God help the weakest among us who overlooked a rule. Survival of the fittest. It’s a moisture-less jungle in there.

3. Use the stairs. Screw the miserably slow elevator, but don’t drop your tech because you’re in a hurry. This didn’t happen to me, but I imagined it happening because everything has to be brought in without a case. How much would it suck to come from wherever else in the country (or world) to do research here only to ruin your scanner or camera or laptop on your maiden voyage up the stairs to the reading room? Go slow but not as slow as the elevator.

4. If you can handle a little extra noise, sit close to the circulation desk so that you don’t have to waste time navigating your fully loaded, payload of a cart through a maze of other carts, desks, and innocent bystanders. First come, first serve.

5. At the NARA it’s not easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Ask permission, and when they tell you no don’t fight it.

6. The borrowable scanners do not work with big documents. Think 8.5” x 11” Watergate-sized papers. If you do borrow a scanner, save yourself thirty minutes and ask for a binder with the software installation instructions.

7. Foam is your friend. Let the foam love the spines of those decomposing massive volumes from the 19th century collections.

8. Don’t cram important work into the last hour of business (4p-5p). The recorded voice announcing the imminent closure of the Archives is terrifyingly reliable, and it doesn’t give a rat’s a** that you haven’t photographed the last consular instruction sent to Constantinople in the 1890s. Come back to it tomorrow.

9. If there is no tomorrow, skip
lunch.

10. If you did skip lunch and there’s no tomorrow, disregard number 8.

11. The sign in front of the research room with pictures of individuals who have been prosecuted and jailed for stealing records is badass. The Guardians are waiting to make a citizen’s arrest.

I proud to serve the people who are conducting research on a myriad of subjects which I find interesting because the information we provide fuels our understanding of the preservation of records

If you are doing research here, arrive at 9 am when they open. You need to get a researcher card on the first floor, then leave anything not allowed in the research rooms downstairs in a locker, then you will go up to the second floor to start research and start the process for requesting documents to be pulled. It could take an hour just for your documents to be pulled, since some records need to be reviewed before they can be released to researchers.

My request took about an hour to be pulled. The staff were very friendly and helpful, and assisted me in pulling the documents I needed.

I highly recommend bringing a scanner or scanning your documents with an app on your phone, since they only have blue paper for their copiers.

Cafeteria's prices are pretty fair for what you get, the cafeteria employees were very courteous.

I never realized what a national treasure The National Archives is...
A friend from the Philippines shared a story about a relative helping the allies in WWII....we were able to trace a photo of the relative from National Archives records....learned so much about the "back story" of the Philippines impact/importance from declassified records...simply amazing.
Helpful staff...
Be prepared for high security (understandably so)...
Took the shuttle from the downtown Archives building...
Enjoy!

I Needed a large print from Cartographic at College Park yesterday. Marie Albanese and Catharine Maciejewski could not have been more helpful. They made it way easier than it otherwise could have been.

Employees need to calm down, the rudest federal employees I have ever encountered. The women on the microfilm floor are wonderful. I hope I never have to drive 800 miles to be treated so rudely.

A great facility where the people who work here go out of their way to assist you in your research projects. Be advised that it is a good idea to go to the web site and read carefully the items that are not allowed and how to get registered when you get there. I will be returning and am ready to continue my research.

You have to take 10 to 15 minutes to register and then they will issue you a card that will be valid for a year. It has 6 floors, the 2nd floor being one of the biggest. Their media comes in all forms such as microfilm, newspapers, dvds, and maps. I believe there are 46 stacks located within the building, and they have a outside reading area as well.

Helpful staff. For those who have not visited before here is some helpful info:

Arrive 15 minutes early so you have time to register (fill out 1 page, review a presentation for new users) and put your stuff in a locker (many things aren't allowed in the research rooms).

Bring a quarter for the locker!

They list "pull times" on the website. You need to have your pull request in before this time for your request to be filled with that pull group. It will take some time for you to fill out the pull request unless you know exactly where you documents are located. If you don't already have this info, then arrive all the more earlier if you have a pull time you are aiming for.

They attempt to have all records pulled within an hour of the pull time.

Have fun!

Excellent place to find old documents. Some of the people in the research room need to calm down a bit and remember that not everyone is a trained academic, and anyway their system sucks so much it would be difficult for anyone to follow. Most of the workers are friendly and helpful though.