SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

December 5, 2011 by Gary Price

National Archives Works on Declassifying Massive Backlog of Documents

December 5, 2011 by Gary Price

From The Washington Post:

The Air Force’s “Reports on Soviet Air Power and Strategic Nuclear Weapons,” about 2,500 pages in all, were produced between 1952 and 1955 — but not until earlier this year were 2,210 pages made public. The release is part of a massive effort at the National Archives and Records Administration to clear a backlog of nearly 400 million pages of material that should have been declassified a long time ago.
“All of these pages had been piling up here, literally,” said Sheryl J. Shenberger, a former CIA official who is the head of the National Declassification Center (NDC) at the National Archives. “We had to develop a Costco attitude: We had 400 million pages . . . and we have three years to do them in.”
[Clip]
The nearly 400 million pages of material had already been reviewed by the department or agency that produced them. But they could not be released until every other agency whose information might be contained in a document had also looked at them and signed off on a declassification decision. That process proved to be a bureaucratic stovepipe through which nothing much moved.
To cut through the mountain of paper, the NDC has introduced a risk-management approach to the documents. Instead of attempting to look at every document, all the relevant agencies agreed to look at a small sample of a particular series. If the reviewers, drawn from all agencies, decide by looking at the sample that the earlier agency review was a good one, then the remainder of the documents that the agency had cleared is made public.

Read the Complete Article

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Journal Articles, Management and Leadership, News

SHARE:

ArchivesClassified DocumentsGovernmentNARANational Declassification Center

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Recent Articles on LJ

Positioned for Power: Hiring an EDI Officer | Equity

Capitol Gains: ALA 2022 Preview

Dartmouth Repatriates Samson Occom Papers to Mohegan Tribe

DEI Audits: The Whole Picture | Equity

Tour de France: A Watching, Reading, and Listening Guide | Your Home Librarian

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

UT Austin’s Briscoe Center for American History Acquires the Richard N. Goodwin and Doris Kearns Goodwin Archives

From the Briscoe Center/UT Austin: The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin has acquired the papers of Richard N. Goodwin, speechwriter and policymaker ...

Research Article: "Building International Partnerships for Digitisation and Preservation"

The article linked below (open access version) was recently published by the Journal of Digital Media Management received via  UCLA eScholarship. Title Building International Partnerships for Digitisation and Preservation Authors ...

A Digital Future for Black Poetry at James Madison University, Thanks to New $2 Million Mellon Grant

From James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded James Madison University $2 million over four and a half years to secure the digital future ...

UK Prime Minister’s Files, 1998 – 2000 & Cabinet Office Files, 1997-2000 Released Today by National Archives

From the National Archives (UK): Today we release files from the Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet Office covering the first years of Tony Blair’s premiership. The newly released Cabinet Office ...

NARA: 1950 Census Release Will Offer Enhanced Digital Access, Public Collaboration Opportunity

From the National Archives and Records Administration: With the scheduled April 1, 2022, release of 1950 Census records a little more than three months away, the National Archives is completing ...

Drexel University and Brandywine Workshop and Archives Partner to Expand First Free and Inclusive Database of Contemporary Art...

From Drexel University: Drexel University and the Brandywine Workshop and Archives (BWA) have partnered to extend and improve Brandywine’s Artura.org, the nation’s first free online database of contemporary diverse art ...

In a New Blog Post, OCLC's Vice-President and Chief Strategist Lorcan Dempsey Discusses "Two Metadata Directions"

From Dempsey’s Blog Post: Libraries are very used to managing metadata for information resources – for books, images, journal articles and other resources. Metadata practice is rich and varied. We ...

Society of American Archivists (SAA) Council Approves Diversity Statement Guidelines, Judiciary Records Issue Brief at Virtual Meeting

From an Society of American Archivists (SAA) Post: At its January 13 virtual meeting, the SAA Council: Approved guidelines for a diversity statement that will be required of all those ...

Arizona State University's "Civic Classics Collection" of Rare Books and Manuscripts Made Accessible to the Public Online

From Arizona State University: “The Federalist Papers,” a collection of short essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay in 1788, is one of the most well-known pro-Constitution ...

The Chicago Librarian Who Created a Lauded Collection of African American History and Literature

From WTTW: Vivian G. Harsh was a librarian who was also an historian, one who nurtured, collected, and disseminated African American history and literature on the South Side of Chicago ...

Journal Article: "Research Data Management in a Cultural Heritage Organisation"

The following article was published yesterday by the International Journal of Digital Curation (IJDC). Title Research Data Management in a Cultural Heritage Organisation Author Tom Drysdale Historic Royal Palaces Source ...

National Archives (NARA) Releases Digital Preservation Framework for Public Comment

From the National Archives and Records Administration: The National Archives and Records Administration is seeking public comment and discussion on our digital preservation framework, which consists of our approach to ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW INFODOCKET ON TWITTER

Tweets by @infodocket

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.