Delving into State…

I finally got out to the National Archives College Park today. The shuttle from NARA I took about 45 minutes each way, and the building itself is pretty set off from the highway. The archives building is massive and quite beautiful, though very modern and minimalist - supposedly it’s the biggest archives building in the world. The reading room has massive floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over a forest that makes for a really pleasant experience, especially when the sun is shining. As opposed to the neoclassical (or just plain antique) reading room of NARA I, the entire College Park building is relatively new, spacious, and brightly lit.

The amazing thing about College Park is that many if not most of the procedures are completely different than those used by the downtown facility. For one thing you check your bags in lockers BEFORE going up to the research floors, meaning that you don’t have to have security look through all of your stuff on the way out, since your bags were never anywhere near archival materials. Also, whereas at NARA I, the archivists filed all of my requests (and found the boxes themselves as well,) here the archivists help you with the massive binders of finding aides, and then help you fill out the call slips. (Granted there are MANY more people using the College Park archives, but still.) They are also much more strict about security clearances – to copy, or even photograph, declassified materials you have to first get the boxes checked by the staff, and they give you a small tab (with the collection number and DECLASSIFIED on it,) to place on each page before copying.

There are a number of collections at College Park that I wanted to look at, but I came today to look at the State Department Collections (RG59,) so that’s what I’ll talk about.

Holy. Crap.

I had been warned that the collection is NOT easy to access, but wow was this was a challenge. The issue isn’t so much getting access to the actual records, but navigating the finding aides. There are two types of aides for the State Department records: Central Decimal Files, and Lot number files. The Central Decimal Files are basically just subject index guides, arranged chronologically (so there is a 1910-1949 binder, a 1950-1963 binder, etc.) These binders are broken up into different “classes” of records (and the classes don’t carry over from one binder to the next.) Even working within the classes themselves is difficult. Once you find the numbers you’re looking for (say, 150 for immigration,) you then fill out a call slip with the number and the years. The kicker is, there’s no way to tell how many boxes you’ll get, and you can only request a total of 24 at a time. (My first try netted 10 boxes for 6 call slips.) Also, many of the Central Decimal Files that involve correspondence between two countries require you to find the special country code for each before submitting.

Lot number files are arranged in binders by category – Wartime Refugees, International Organizations, certain major figures, etc. With these files you have to first find the proper Entry number that you are looking for, along with the box numbers that you want. Then you have to go to the location files (marked with a blue dot), and look up the stack location, shelf position, etc., before filling out all of the information.

The archivists have to check all files to make sure that (a) they’re not a microfilm, and (b) they’re not classified. Even if they’ve been declassified though, they can still be harder to get – if the records are in the “631” area, they can only be pulled twice daily. Oh, and did I mention that regular files are either housed in the “150” or “250” section of the archives, and you can only request files from one location per pull? Thankfully the archivists are very patient and helpful…

I think I’ve got the hand of the system, but honestly, there is a TON of material out there, and unlike the legislative records I’ve been working with, it seems like I’ll have to do much more digging to get through these records.

I have some more thoughts on the State Department records themselves, and the range of equipment being used at College Park to document the materials, but I’ll save that for another post.