Welcome to DC or Spinning My Wheels

I finally made it into D.C. yesterday, and stepping off the train the first thing I felt was the heat and humidity. I forgot just how hot it is here, and I think after two years in California, I’ve lost my tolerance for anything other than temperate climates. I also forgot about the flash thunderstorms on the east coast, but thankfully missed the vast majority of the heavy rain. (There is something really beautiful though about sitting inside watching the lightning.)

This afternoon I went to NARA (Downtown) for the first time. I had already spoken with the INS archivist (see previous posts,) who assured me that there were two boxes of materials already waiting for me here. I got to the archives and went through the registration process (signing into the building and going through the airport-style security; registering my computer and camera serial numbers; registering for a researcher card and going through an informational slideshow about preservation.) At this point the archivist on the main floor told me my materials should already by in the reading room, so I headed to the second floor. When I got into the reading room and went through security, the people at the desk told me they had no record of my materials, and sent me back to the first floor. Back again on the first floor the front-desk archivist sent me to the finding aid room, where they also could not locate my files or an archivist who knew about my case. After about 45 minutes we finally reached the INS archivist who came down and found my boxes. By this time I had missed the 1:30pm pull time, and had to kill another half an hour before the 2:30 pull time (basically I had to wait for a page to literally bring the boxes two flights up. This is only done at specific times during the day, naturally.)

Thankfully while I was waiting I did have the time to meet with an archivist from the Legislative Division, to talk about Senate and House Subcommittee Hearings. Hopefully I will be able to get unpublished documents on committee hearings for various Congressional legislation, but again, since everything needs to be screened in advance, I need to write up a list of the House and Senate Bill Numbers for each piece of legislation I’m looking for, and email it to the archivist to see if they have the files I need.

At 2:30 I headed to the reading room and finally got 2 boxes of materials. Surprisingly, considering all of the security getting into the room, the staff basically leaves you alone once you’re there. I was also struck by how noisy the room was – people freely talking loudly…shocking for a library. Of the two boxes of materials, one contained nothing really relevant – mainly documents too early for my project. The other box seems promising, and I was able to photograph most of it today. Unfortunately it’s mostly correspondence INTO the INS – I was hoping to find responses FROM the INS as well. I may just be missing an obvious oversight, but where do I find the outgoing records???

In terms of equipment – I bought a new tripod before I left California, and it’s made life a lot easier. I’m using a Cannon PowerShot SD400 (5 Megapixels) to document my work. So far so good…