five minutes to make opening statements followed by opening statements not to exceed three minutes by any other member and without objection members and witnesses may have five legislative days to submit a written statement eyestrain is materials for the record welcome to the day's hearing on the mission of the national archives the purpose of today's hearing is to examine the national archives mission and how it is defined and f veil we will consider several important topics including the views of the new archive as the united states on mission learning how the leaders of similar agencies the smithsonian institution and the library of congress balance competing needs while fulfilling their core mission and hearing the opinions of agency stakeholders on our performance this is a time of rising budget pressures explosive grow of specially electronic records and mounting urgency to make these records available to the public the media the courts and congress more rapidly the subcommittee has heard from many of  constituencies that they are concerned the agency's increasing emphasis on museum exhibits and related programs may be not only straining resources but diverting its focus from fulfilling its core mission as we will hear from several of our witnesses managing preserving and providing prompt and proper access to federal records has been a must continue to be the primary mission of the national archive it is commendable that nara wants to expand access program increasing the number and type of records available as well as increasing the number of those who can directly examine the r learning from an interpreter for themselves however there are questions as to whether a museum exhibit truly qualifies as a records access program and public visitors to a museum  actually exploring records there's also the question raised by many concerned about the agency that naras elevation of his role as a history museum above that of his c mission may being creasing the agencies are already considerable delays in receiving preserving and opening federal records the national archives celebrated the seventy fifth anniversary this year congratulations to all national archives employees the history of the agency demonstrates that from its founding in one nine hundred thirty four archive as has shaped the focus of the arc to meet the unique challenges they civic literacy and expand a museum educational and outreach program we trust that the new archive as is ready to meet the current challenges and we offer our strong support for him as he begins his ten this committee and your dedication your friendship and thank you all for being here today this is certainly an important matter of effective governance and making sure that we have records that are testable to the public whether across individuals and then portions of ensuring that we have records available for future generations whether it's the challenges of digital records or or keeping the tax that we currently have available so thank you and without objection mr archive of the united states and prior to his nomination in july of two thousand and nine by president obama to lead and mr kerry i served as the andrew w mail and director of the new york public library the largest public public library system in the united states among his responsibilities was was the development of the libraries digital strategy which includes a digital library  institute of technology and university he is a first librarian to serve as archivist of the united states we want to congratulate mr farris and his on his appointment welcome him and wish him well thank you for being here next witness is dr g wayne club the twelfth secretary of the smithsonian institution dr clark currently leads a plan a plan to did digitize much of the smithsonian one hundred thirty seven million objects prior to becoming secretary in july of zero eight served as president of the georgia institute of technology for fourteen years he received a doctorate in civil engineering from the university of california berkeley dr club has been a professor at duke university's stanford university of virginia tech and also serves as probably at the university of washington and after and members of the subcommittee i'm david that's very archivist of the united states thank you for this opportunity to discuss the mission of the national archives i'm pleased to appear here alongside the librarian of congress dr billington and the secretary of the smithsonian dr cluff i'm looking forward to the benefit of their wisdom as heads of major national institutions that like the archives preserve and make the historical and cultural treasures of our country accessible to millions of people who spent just over a month since i was confirmed as the tenth archivist of the united states to come to the job having spent my entire career and served two people seeking access to information first at the libraries of mit and duke university and most recently as the director of the library of the new york public library the national archives exist for access and i firmly believe that every component of the agency is in service to that fundamental mission we do this in records management by ensuring that agencies create and maintain records of their activities for future access we do this in preservation by safeguarding the long term viability of records so that they can be accessed we do this in reference services by responding to requests for access and specific records and we do this in our museum in educational programs by making records interesting indeed exciting to visitors before i comment on the issues you've asked me to address i would first like to say that we you have my commitment to an open dialogue for me and my leadership team as you conduct your oversight of the archives one concern high on your list and mine is agency security both for information technology systems and physical holdings we absolutely must be able to ensure that is able to safeguard the documentary heritage of our nation i'm pleased to tell you that on the seventh of december i announce the creation of the national archives holding protection program this program will strengthen the protection of original records regardless of their format as a team leader i have appointed mr eric peterson who comes in our from the naval information operations command where he was responsible for loss prevention and classified programs also i know that this committee is very familiar with the work of nahr and specter naras inspector general i plan to work closely with him and the security staff on the front lines to improving our security across the board another priority is meeting the challenge of archiving electronic records i believe has built a solid foundation of promoting and ensuring effective records management across the federal government the agency faces serious challenges when it comes to electronic records including the continuing to live or formats in which federal records are created and the mix nature of federal recordkeeping for agencies create both paper and electronic records our responsibility in regard to electronic records is not just to build electronic records archives it is also to ensure that agencies are managing the electronic records they create and identify as permanently valuable we can and we will do a better job of making sure agencies are taking this responsibility seriously the title of this hearing begins with a question about our museum function we have been inviting the public to see records and exhibits at the national archives for our entire seventy five year history and we have long been leaders  encouraging the use or primary sources in history and civics education the last decade has brought substantial growth in our exhibit and education programs thanks to the foundation for the national archives and the presidential library foundations which raised millions of dollars to fund museum and education programs here and across the nation more than a year ago on our began to look into ways that we could better provide visitor services at the national archives building while retaining the service that we provide to researchers the significant drop in microfilm usage made it possible to reduce the size of the microphone reading room and expand exhibit space without diminishing research or services i was dismayed however the management did a poor job communicating with both research staff and researchers on this issue and in recent weeks there has been a great deal of concern expressed by some of our researchers about the changes under discussion we will be holding a public forum tomorrow afternoon to discuss issues i am personally participating in the forum not only as the archivist but as one who has spent four decades as a research librarian those who visit our facilities as research are highly valued stakeholders and they have the ear of this research librarian turned archivist as i set out to improve the agency's communications with stakeholders i am including congress first of ari met with some members of this subcommittee and i'm looking forward to meeting with all of you as soon as possible second the archives has forty four facilities in one thousand state and i intend to reach out to each congress person who represents the women and men who work at these locations additionally i want all members to know that they have an open invitation to visit any nara facility especially the one just a few blocks away so that they can get a firsthand look at what we do we have a great story to tell with the records we hold which include the records of congress starting with day one of the first congress come and spend thirty minutes with us and i can promise you a very memorable experience finally i share this subcommittee's concerns with management culture as i said about changing that culture my team my immediate goal is addressing unacceptably poor survey results on employee job satisfaction all know our employees from those are operating forklifts to the most senior ar equally important to the success of this mission i say this with the perspective of one who began his career shelving books in my very short time as archivist of the united states i have become keenly aware of the skill talent and spirit that have shaped this unique organization for its first seventy five years i have also become aware of the many challenges that face this agency and in that regard i would like to thank you mr chairman and the members of the subcommittee for the to him and his transition and it's a pleasure to be here with my colleague the librarian of congress dr james billington our collective mission is extremely important the national archives and records administration preserves a record of the federal government the library of congress serves as the largest library in the world and the smithsonian institution preserve the history arts sciences and cultural traditions of our country we complement each other as we pursue our shared go of preserving our collections and making them as excess will as possible as fast as we can to research or students teachers families and the american public with one thousand museums twenty libraries numerous research centers the national zoo and more than one hundred thirty seven million objects and specimens in our collections the smithsonian stands out as a unique entity archival collection includes scientific documents records and other media total than one hundred thousand cubic feet and for the foundation for research scholarship publications exhibitions and public programs unique to the smithsonian this year nearly thirty million visits were made to the smithsonian and we had one hundred eighty eight million visitors sessions on our various web sites to ensure that we bring our resources to the world we recently embarked on the most inclusive and comprehensive strategic planning exercise in the smithsonian's history of detailed discussion of this amount written testimony briefly our new vision called for us to shape the future by preserving our heritage discovering new knowledge and sharing our resources with the world our plan organize these around for focused things so we won't be doing everything or everybody one is unlocking the mysteries of the universe to understanding and sustaining about a verse planet three valuing world cultures and for understanding the american experience the plan reformatory firms our core values of integrity responsibility and organizational excellence the nation's growing diversity challenges us to reach new audiences and to use new partners to do so and we will do this primarily using digital technology the more collections are available virtually the less these materials are subject to harmful handling and damage and it also saves additional funds for us because we don't have to process as many applications for use of our materials but we also want to make sure that our school children the teachers the parents and the scholars have access to these extraordinary collections that we have in washington our first secretary joseph henry was legally charged with preserving the records of the smithsonian institution the smithsonian institution archive holdings constitute the official memory of the smithsonian and document the development of american sciences arts culture and technology the united states is one of the most advanced countries in the world in terms of providing access public use for public information u s policies and professional ethics are focused on the widest most equitable openness for archival holdings however many of our collections remain an accessible for a host of reasons insufficient staff lack of expertise to work on special formats or special language materials in addition some inspiring the public mind aging them in an exploration of what it means to be an american in today's world for one hundred sixty three years the smithsonian institution has built the national collections disseminated innovative research and welcome millions of visitors to  museum creating a reputation so strong that the smithsonian is known as a symbol of america throughout the world and i'm extremely proud of our passionate and dedicated people in our ball in tears and will continue to work to see that progress is made is the same as we go forward again thanks to the chair of the ranking member from opportunity to testify thank you for your testimony dr glove and thank you so much for being here dr billington you have five minutes states david for carry out we wish mr kerry a well in this new job and look forward to working with the library of congress is america's oldest federal cultural institution when we've had good relations for many years with the smithsonian and the archives has different collections and missions generally compliment ours we all face however some or similar challenges to acquire preserve and make excess of all important primary materials and to serve both researchers and the general public congress this chairman has been the greatest patron of the library in the history of the world building up for two hundred nine years the world's largest most comprehensive and multi formatted library covering some four hundred seventy languages stored on more than six hundred fifty miles of shelving and relentlessly adding ten thousand new analog items daily our top priority is to serve the research needs of congress which we do with our congressional research service providing objective combatives of research and on policy matters and responding last year to nearly nine hundred thousand research and reference requests from the congress on all librar a foreign law research arm of congress and we serve congress in other ways lending books to members and staff archiving veterans oral histories collected through members offices and providing a special member's reading room in the beautiful member room for meetings in the jefferson building exclusively for members use since we are also the defacto national library of the united states our second major priority is serving the american people last year we responded to over half a million public reference requests in our twenty one really room circulated twenty two million free braille and recorded books and magazines to disabled patrons all over the country through local libraries and fielded more than and i have billion electronic transactions on the library's free educational website which contains nearly sixteen million digital files of american history and culture thousands of researchers is of the library annually to study firsthand unparalleled collections which include many materials and be found anywhere else the unique copyright deposit of america the world's largest collections not just of books and periodicals but of maps music and movies we do massive preservation work notably at the library's new packard audiovisual conservation center and culpepper virginia and through the congressionally mandated national digital information infrastructure and preservation program which we direct and coordinate with one hundred seventy six partners including the archives and the smithsonian when the library moves out of the capitol and into the new jefferson building an eight hundred ninety seven congress made it clear that the interior space was just trying to be not only a library but a public showcase with exhibitions visitors could go to be inspired by the quest for knowledge as an essential part of our knowledge base democracy with the recent renovation by congress of the jefferson building our flagship building out our introduction last year of interactive enhancements of the public spaces and popular exhibits we have honored that important balance serving both the scholar community and the general public the facilities for the scholarly community have actually been expanded with the addition through private funds of our cars of our clue the center the library of congress has also been an innovator in the internet age superimposing new digital collections of services older traditional analog ones reaching out to the young generation and the lifelong learners to stimulate curiosity and creativity wherever they live we featured beginning in the mid one nine hundred ninety s free digital access to our collections putting online both our american memory national digital library and thomas our legislative database this year we added a world digital library in seven languages with some material covering all hundred ninety two members of your  provide online resources to target specifically for k through twelve students and teachers using our primary source documents our website years has increased six thousand percent since nineteen ninety six the library i missed chairman like america itself as a new without discarding the old we continue to maintain a balance and serving congress in the scholarly community while welcoming thanks to the passageway from the capitol visitor center visitors both on site as well as online to this unique story house both of the world's knowledge of america's cultural and intellectual creativity thank you very much for inviting me today and i'll be happy to states and appreciate the tremendous work and mr ferraro welcome and i just add my congratulations to everyone else's this question is to you last week the director of office of management and budget issued an open government directive that requires agencies to take a number of actions to improve access to government information under the directive each agency must take steps to reduce its backlog of freedom of information act requests by ten percent each year what actions will take to reduce its freedom of information act backlog as required by the open government directive and what other steps aznar a plan to take to implement the directive just before i arrived agency established just  which is the office that is charged with reducing the this backlog and working with the agencies the cia and the justice department especially to ensure that we are streamlining the process to the point person miriam nesbitt who is going to head up this office has been in place since the end of september she's now building a staff and working very closely especially with the c cia looking at technological solutions to this problem when you referenced streamlining can you have specific examples of what's being done to streamline the process she's in the very beginnings of  establishing new processes for for speeding up the these requests and i'm happy to come back when we have something concrete to share my other question gets t this balance between you know the role of the archives in collecting information and making that available to the public and to display mr billington library what was talking about the role of the library of congress in the design of the jefferson building in your testimony you talk about the balance that is struck between storing the materials and also displaying those materials for the public mr prime minister for what do you believe is the balance for the archives you know is it the same as what we're trying to achieve in the library of congress or is that balance different is the mission significantly different such that you know we don't do the same type of we don't have the same type of emphasis on  sharing and displaying the information as the library might have i think we have similar missions we have different content that where talking about my content are the records of the united states and i think we have the same responsibility to provide the museum and educational aspects of our mission as the library of congress does this is the way we excite and interest a whole new generation of people  looking especially at the k through twelve community about learning firsthand about this country about getting a sense of excitement about our history and nothing can compare to looking at the physical the real original documents area certainly appreciate your appointment in the credibility you bring to a very important agency an agency and much needed strong leadership and certainly appreciate your connection north carolina as well even though it is discussed the loss of sensitive data from your college park location and his what he said then was an agency was a complete lack of internal controls to paraphrase something that every research collection deals with and the tension between providing access to collections and protecting the security is a culture of vigilance that isn't a one o kind of operation where you come up with recommendations and you've done security it's something that you think about every day every minute of your control of the collections and that's the kind of urgency that i intend to create warehouse and the disappearance of many terabytes of information it's interesting that i learned this year what a terabyte is and the discussions we have about that massive amount of information now  the story today about finding e mails from the bush administration and there's been some losses there have been some gains but i think there's a need of a cultural change and i appreciate your willingness to address it but what are the substantive change steps you'll take to change the culture we have and we have established the holding security task force we have hired a person with security background to head up that team and he has the authority working with the inspector general to analyze the situation and come up with a whole new set of security procedures and policies and i should say that security is not the responsibility of just a few in the organization everyone who works for an r has to have the sense of vigilance around security ok certainly  this is another one of those areas where i would be happy to come back and reports of the subcommittee exactly what we've come up with ok we've also had before your appointment a discussion about the electronic records and the ongoing changes there you touch on that sort of it's sort of an open ended opportunity for you discuss this because in terms of of five years ago and on and on and on so how are you going to establish this electronic records system that we can continually update and it makes sense twenty years from now well that's  another one of those challenges that's at the top of my list to figure out and get it right this is a an initiative that has started many years ago in the in the time that we are launched this process the technology has changed already the timeline needs to be shortened the challenge is that every agency has been allowed to create their own electronic records management system with varying platforms and software packages and they don't talk to each other so it's a little more complicated than just ingesting all these electronic records it's a set of standards but primarily and philosophically at heart is the archives the archivist reassuming his responsibility for ensuring that the agencies are creating these systems and delivering in a way that we can deal with them and that's something that there has been great laxity in the past no annual all it's not well we're glad you're in charge no it's certainly not an easy it's certainly a challenge and a distinct shalen just based on the culture you're walking into but we have our plan and it's in the materials that you have and it's a plan that we just developed and it took about a year to develop we had a cultural problem also at the smithsonian and so we wanted to make it an inclusive process to get people to buy in to the plan and we finish that and we're very pleased with the way the results have come out we do we're required by our board of regents to have very explicit goals and measurable goals and so we have goals that we expect to be measured against over the life of the plan which is basically two plan the plan that we the executive some of the plan speaks to what we will measure but not exactly what we would measure because we thought it would just be too much detail for the average person but that's all available in public records and we have in fact what we tried to do as we develop the plan was to bring our all of our stakeholders meaning not just those at the smithsonian to those outside the smithsonian into the process of deciding what we should measure and so that is available in the party and we can make available measure how many people come through the door but more interesting and more valuable are qualitative kinds of measurements how effective was the visit did you get what you need what  how qualified of the staff that you that you interact with what did you learn from the experience and then there are measures on resource use of resources right somewhat similar for us in that for example for a museum visit we survey our visitors and we have a standard to which we aspire for visitors saying this was an excellent visitor this was a very good visit this was a formative to me in a particular way and so we have those kind of measures we also look at the number of people who come the number of people who come to our web sites how long they stay what they tell us that they we were looking for more of a two way exchange today as opposed to simply i see the archives much more as a museum like the smithsonian museum frankly that if you come here you are a go to the archives just the way you go to congress to say that i've heard all my life a while and you see what really happens in here let me look at it very same thing for the archive now not suggesting a name change here but i am suggesting that you are transforming how and this is the way for some time now i'm not sure  find what they need far be it for me to say that isn't important but the fact that you serve the entire country and there was a question asked by one of my colleagues about the so called balance let pick out one of the things you do to ask you whether or not congress needs to look more carefully at the transformation of its own perhaps if you go before an immigration court you don't have any rights i mean you are not in the country for years have we speaking yet you are challenging some kind of order so we have an immigration court and you don't have discovery there as i understand it if you want to find out anything about what the government the other side who is in court with you has on you you've got to do a request and i understand these requests which are very important just are just as the kind of requests we had in my past for y active for oil were important but somebody whether somebody stays in the country or leaves whether or not this false information regarding whether the person has been involved in some activity terrorists or not strategy for keeping yourself from being buried in foyer requests whether you've asked for a different way to handle for your requests perhaps outside of the archives where you've asked for more funding or staff to handle and are you just sitting there letting the boys who requests come in and somebody go look when when she gets ready to gets down to do you and of course they get to the case and i'm not suggesting all of these cases are full of of content but obviously they have the right to the boy or because the courts do consider them if they happen to get the information in time what if you don't get it in time since you have a right to discovery off with your head what does the archive do when it's only even call it new but certainly not anticipated use piling in you is this are there more for your requests of this kind in any other boy requests what are you doing about it you're asking very good questions and as i said the operation that's been set up in the archives is charged want to the certain kinds of things you'll never get enough money to handle i think you ought to have your staff and your counsel looking at whether or not you i suggest that either some animal rights be granted to people before immigration court which is in the jurisdiction of the congress or that's something else to be done because i do not see a way for you to get on top of what is an ever increasing number nor do i think the facts are as united states ought to keep pouring money into something of a kind if there is another way to do it i notice your budget has doubled whether or not the presidential libraries i want to that's getting some kind of preference over the last ten years some kind of preference over other kinds of things because after all they are president well i mean have you had a doubling of your budget in any other part of what you do not that i'm aware of  although the budget has kept up with the increasing volume of material that the archives is responsible for so that again every year the archives brings in more and more content and the budget has increased support that and terms of the presidential library staff prepared just before i arrive and submit a report on the future of the presidential library which spells out five different scenarios i'd like to call a question the last time i looked seventy percent of the funding of the smithsonian was from the united states government is about that percentage about sixty five percent of federal appropriations and thirty four bit of area concerned with with the fund raising record of the smithsonian here we have the most unusual i would call it a unique collection of museums nothing like it in the world any city that had it and its mitts would regard it as a treasure trove i am struck dumb by why the smithsonian has not been able to raise more private funds from across the united states need to know what your fund raising model is considering that i do not expect that the united states congress is going to raise the percentage we can hardly keep up with your backlog of repairs and alterations working hard on getting the message out about th telling the correct story about the purposes that it serves to the american people and the world this past year our goal is not a relative of anybody what's the fun is there is there you know if you go to places like new york our case statement which is we have goals that we think that the american people and members of congress and other support for us and then we try to identify the target for people who corporations foundations and so forth who would support us and this past year we were pleasantly surprised we had a goal of one hundred twenty million dollars in private philanthropy and we wrote two hundred twenty seven so we did better than we expected on that sign we think with the strategic plan in place and with a definite  concerted effort to reach out to the american people we will do better and our goal is to have a national campaign and you will know from having your university experience that that takes a structure which we've not had we are in the process of working with our regions to put that in and by the end of the year we should have not only the ideas but also the structure in place to actually get this done so i think you can look for better results from us shortly gentleman do you already are charging to get in the so called butterfly the congress of the twenty million people come here our constituents we pay for this hole  financially obviously we could use additional funds because it's a struggle to find that balance between if you will the security and the access type of of the equation and we deal with that every day but we're very pressured with the support we do get from congress this past year in f y ten for example we got two million dollars in addition to the funds we had before to help us with collections care and security of our collections and we very much appreciated that but i think working collectively together thinking together about the future of these institutions and making sure w right direction is a powerful way to go forward thank you for that response dr billington you write in your statement that the library of congress dismissed some money and and the national archives complement and in the collection yes mr chairman i think there are i think there is i think that there is there are fundamental clear fairly clear lines in the sense of the official record of the u s government is in the archives the smithsonian has a vast array of things but generally speaking covering many of the areas that we do but in a different way i mean they tend to have three dimensional objects for exhibition we tend to have two dimensional records whether it's films well they have films too but there's there's some duplications but there's room there's a fairly distinct division and we also got this president from the packer humanities institute that's been able to create this audiovisual conservation center which has been able to bring back the world's largest collection of recorded sound director of the office of management and budget issues that open government directive that requires agencies to take a number of actions to improve access to government information under the directive each must take steps to reduce would now like to introduce our second panel our first witness will be and alwis wiseman chief counsel for citizens for responsibility and and ethics in washington otherwise known as communications commission prior to that as assistant branch director of the civil division of the department of justice she had supervisor responsibility of litigation on the floor yet the privacy act the federal advisory and promotes access to and preservation of genealogical records most operators and amateur genealogist who has been researching their family for most thirty years in two thousand and four she retired from a thirty five year career in the title insurance industry to receive to be a degree in political science from the university of california santa barbara and an m b a from the university of connecticut thank you for being here and next witness  will be kevin goldberg legal counsel for the american society of news editors mr goldberg six expertises and for copyright and trademark issues and he regularly advocates issues involving freedom archivist and the administration's dedication to a transparent and accountable government presenting our with unique opportunities to reexamine its mission and priorities and establish a new road map for how to achieve them most importantly the archivists must decide whether nara will continue to elevate its role as a museum of the nation's history over its role as the records access agency the question this committee has posed this juncture also affords congress an opportunity to reexamine the laws that govern recordkeeping in the executive branch first the dismal state of electronic record keeping across nearly all agencies in the federal government cries out for a new direction from nara as documented in a report we issued in april two thousand and eight and the periodic reports from the g a o to date nara has failed to affirmatively and effectively assist agencies in developing in implementing effective records management policies the g a o june two thousand and eight report notes the civically that narrows failure to conduct inspections of agency record management programs since two thousand leaves us w limited assurances that agencies are appropriately managing the records in their custody and that important records are not lost we accrue are confronted with this problem all the time as agencies tell us repeatedly in response to our foyer requests that they simply have no way to access and search their electronic e mail records although this failure has now reached a crisis point never continues to abdicated statutory responsibilities and fails to recognize the urgency of the situation opting instead to time and again for a more the role that avoids any direct conflict with the agency that oversees nowra justifies its failure to take on a more active role his new role as resulting from the limited in fourth when authority that the f r a confers on it but we strenuously disagree and urge mr feria to re evaluate the need for additional legislative authority only including an analysis of its status functionality and feasibility launched in two thousand and one and the iraq has been promised as the answer to the long term preservation of electronic records but in the intervening years we have seen huge cost overruns multiple instances of contractor mismanagement and growing doubt about whether the e r a is capable of delivering on this promise and justice critically nara has yet to tackle the issue of public access to records once they make their way into the system such an audit also has to consider the actions of the contractor lockheed martin and answer questions about its conduct why for example has lockheed applied for numerous patents related to the e r a despite the fact that the project is entirely federally funded even more fundamentally should narrow even continue with the e r a given its problems today and we asked the new archivist to take a clear eyed look at this question and if necessary have the courage to abandon the project if it cannot deliver on its promises third nara suffers from a culture of passive achieve that has prevented it from becoming an effective leader in the management and preservation of our nation's history and i'm pleased that dr ferrier recognizes these problems with each day month year that goes by without effective management we lose another slice of our history president obama has promised an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability but this promise cannot be fulfilled if agencies fail to preserve agency records in short the status quo is unacceptable we ask now right now to reinvigorate and redefine itself as part of the solution not the problem we also asked that congress consider legislative amendments that we've i have outlined in my written testimony that would add a measure of accountability and provisions that would better ensure compliance crew welcomes the opportunity to work with this committee and the new leadership at nara i'm happy to answer your questions thank you thank you ms wise when we look good afternoon chairman clay and members of the subcommittee thank you for the invitation to testify before the subcommittee today my name is janet a alpert and i'm the president of the national geological society are members range from family history researchers to professional genealogists the genia logical community is well represented in this room today the following points or more fully described my written statement which has been presented to the subcommittee additional statements of support and concern from other genealogy groups are available on our website at w w w n g s genealogy dot com the national archives and records administration is a very important source of original records for the gen logical community as a result we are their largest research user group the national geological society supports the mission of naira but we are concerned and that the two most important priorities to safeguard and preserve the records of our government and to ensure the continuing access to the essential documentation are becoming secondary to the third tenet of the mission to promote civic education and historical understanding of our national experience several example support our position narrow has a backlog of documents which have not been processed the process and many more records which will be coming to narrow for processing and safeguarding over the next few years we are not aware of any plans to accommodate the increasing volume of records it is important for the major collections to stay at the national archives building in washington d c because people who travel here to do research deedes e access to the other collections at the library of congress the smithsonian and the da our library second the extensive record groups that narrow requires skilled experts to assist researchers due to budget cutbacks staff reductions and retirements we believe the skill level of the staff is diminishing rather than increasing three plans are underway to reduce the research area so the museum and exhibit area can be expanded continued access to microfilm an adequate research space is necessary and kill more of the records are digitized and available online for naira has shown leadership in developing partnerships with third parties to digitize many records which are very valuable to genealogists however we are not aware of plans to make these digitized records available to the public for free over the narrow web site at the end of the five year contract period so as to the question history museum or records access agency from what we have heard some of the planned exhibits will do because it records already available online through local libraries and they may mis represent the complexity of the research process we support civic education and we think it can best be accomplished at the national and regional archives through hands on workshops with student groups and teacher training on using documentary sources in the classroom we believe it would be more cost effective to spend the money building interactive learning and exhibits online which would reach the broader public not just people who visit the national archives  washington d c there are already many wonderful museums along the capitol mall yet there is only one unique collection of original records at the national archives in summary we recommend that the new united states ar area both appropriate short term action and established long term strategies that support the priorities of record preservation and access we also hope you will include genealogists in the planning process the geneological community stands ready to support the arc of us in building a world class research facility and model for emerging democracies around the world thank you thank you media organizations that includes the american society of news mr chairman as you well know s g i and i have a long history of working with the subcommittee on issues relating to the proper management and distribution of government information we are here today to find that to define the and standing functions of the agency's mission statement are impossible without public access to records created not just decades ago but on a continuing basis now much quoted visionary for government transparency former supreme court justice louis brandeis so an active and informed public is critical to a healthy democracy those who want our independence brandeis wrote believe that public discussion is a political duty and that this should be a fundamental principle of american government having previously does claire sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectant justice brandeis also clearly saw access to government information as democracies oxygen you cut off that supply democracy dies ensuring access to information is central to s mission it is one of a a sneeze core values but forty three years after for his passage obtaining government information in a speedy or low cost fashion can still be difficult if not impossible for a reporter from a major daily newspaper let alone the average citizen that is why today's hearing is so important ensuring there is dedication to distributing its own records and its newly vested ability to assess other executive branch agencies disclosure decisions is vital to our democracy first never must perfect its own access policies and activities the agency like so many others has significant processing backlogs never issued a for improvement plan on october sixteenth two thousand and six in which you claimed it responded to seventy six percent of all for your request within the statutorily mandated twenty day response period well mr chairman that falls into the c range on a one hundred point grading scale that's satisfactory but i wasn't treated too kindly by my parents when i brought home c's mirror rightly notes that resources to address foil were reduced as for your request increase but part of the problem is that the agency does not appear to have fully implemented its own recommendations made in two thousand and six there are several links to narrow reference guide and to the archival research catalog but the legal mandated access to actual records vieira's electronic reading room appears limited and an improved since two thousand and six the need for an error to get its own house in order is more significant now that congress has intrusted the agency with a new office designed to deal with the public and other agencies to make foil work better near a must lead by example at the office of government information services becomes a key contact point for the public on foil and reviews other agencies compliance with fo for this hearing i want to emphasize that for over just to be effective the archivist must embrace or just as active engagement with other agencies in the public over just can first help unburden agencies from their foyer request by pushing agencies to put more information online without waiting for requests more information online means fewer burdensome requests as requesters understand they have an ally in this new office they will reach out to oh just for assistance and education they should result in faster processing as oh just quickly resolved in precise or misconstrued requests finally or just intervention should be able to head off litigation when parties are simply at an impasse but oh just as effectiveness in making for work better for federal agencies and the public will ultimately hinge on and a budget of one point four million for fiscal year two thousand said that money has allowed the office to hire a total of six employees the office will eventually need more staff to accomplish its goals this is why the congressional budget office estimated o g s would require a budget of three million dollars  its first year and about six million dollars each year thereafter to be fully functional as important as proper funding is a commitment which is independent the combination of independence and record keeping active and is the main reason congress held this office within the national archives we hope that oh just director i'm that and her staff will be given the trust and leeway needed to develop we thank you for the opportunity to present our views on the future the national archives and the importance of the new odious office to the agency's mission i welcome your questions invitation to testify ask me to discuss nars mission to preserve and ensure access to records and asked if i believe the agency's efforts in exhibits and other programs influence that performance when president hoover laid the cornerstone for the national archives building he stated there will be aggregated here the most sacred documents of our history the originals of the declaration of independence and of the constitution of the united states the display of the declaration of independence and of the constitution are certainly a visible symbol of our national archives but they are merely a symbol it is a preservation of records and the corollary processes of gathering those records from the agencies and making them available to the public that are the core challenges of this unique institution the electronic records archives are certainly the biggest challenge facing the archivist this five hundred fifty one million dollars computer system has had a long history of false starts just last month both the g a o and nars own inspector general testified to this committee they have no idea what the system does how it works and where the money went we do know that after two hundred thirty seven million dollars spent to date the system has no backup and restore capabilities we do know that public access to the is an afterthought and we do know that the contractor lockheed martin has taken out fifteen patent applications on the system with a half billion dollars in taxpayer money on the line it goes without saying that the software should be open source so then any stay archivist could run the same system the ira system is so complex because of the incoming de lucia of electronic records when the national archives was being created archivist conn faced a similar situation at first the archives were similarly on able to keep up archivist conor instituted a series of changes moving examiners closer to the source and providing better guidance and standardize forms and schedules to the agencies for many years now records management has been sorely neglected guidance has been limited to telling agencies to print and save in a recent survey shows no agency y policies for important archives such as electronic mail it was heartening ferial list this area as one of his key concerns stating that he would reinstitute agency inspections and that not should play a leadership role in addition to electronic records one of the key challenges facing our is digit of older materials looking back again and archivist connor we see that nara dealt with an incoming deludes of paper records by pioneering an important set of technical advances including the development of microfilm digitization of paper and other materials should be a key priority for nara as well as the smithsonian the library of congress and the government printing office in one thousand nine hundred eighty five nara secured president roosevelt support to get w p a funding to employ white collar workers to serve federal archives recovery dot gov shows no stimulus funding for nara and in the midst of the current depression there is a tremendous opportunity to put people to work by creating public works for the digital age and opportunity france sees this monday announcing one point one billion dollars in stimulus funding to scanned their national library is instructive instead of viewing digitization of materials as an opportunity the archives has disclosed task to be out of scope and it's created as an alternative a series of public private partnerships with organizations such as amazon dot it is my understanding from non official sort of a similar arrangement may be in the works in which a large number of congressional hearings would be scanned by lexis nexis and made available on that retail information system in his defining moment for the new institution and i think the national archives faces another defining moment today thank you thank you so much testimony let me start with  material and it's just inexplicable to me why it is that it's the subject of private pattern if it's and if it were patentable why the government doesn't hold those patents and not a contractor we're not talking about a system that's been built with commercially off the shelf software you know it is being developed and built entirely with federal funds and i think it speaks to the larger concern i alluded to which is valued so effectively over the the contractor and i know that the inspector general at nara who i guess is testified before this committee has also written some poor and i think his concerns as well and it's hard to really get to the bottom of it except that at a minimum it appears at least the crew that nara just does not have the technical and other know how to affectively and adequately supervise this contract and i think that's why here we are lo these many years later and these many many millions of dollars later raising a question about whether we should even continue or abandon this project very quickly when i think the national archives has a role to play in managing not only its own archives but in leadership to the archives in the fifty states and throughout the world when they invented the microfilm and lamination and the airbrush in the one nine hundred thirty s they didn't patent those and our contractors did and it spread throughout our archival science the e r a system is something that any state archives should be able to run and most importantly by making it open source we can see how the system functions make sure it's secure and make sure that it does the job that it's yes time and again when we have gone and urged her to take a stronger leadership role they have suggested that they are limited because they have very limited statutory authority one of the provisions of the federal records act that we've just had ongoing dispute with them about on this issue is the obligation to conduct inspections they don't do that and agencies know that they're not going to be inspected for records compliance and we have massive noncom inspections and i think this is yet one one of any number of examples where they have taken a very narrow view of their statutory authority you know it's kind of remarkable really because sometimes we're dealing with runaway agencies that have a very expansive view but now are seemingly does not want to take on the sponsibility and frankly it has seemed very risk adverse it doesn't want to be in conflict but we really welcome the new archivist because it's our discussion about electronic records nora was a leader one of the other panelists said in the thirty's and then how so many of the records are going to be electronic the new records are coming in electronically and there are many many records behind the scenes that are still in paper format and they're actually if you talk about pension records they're actually in folders that are hundreds of years old so i think the real challenge for the office there are some very talented people there we know miriam both from her work in government and out of government we know she's going to do the job she's extremely knowledgeable about these issues so one of the things we can actually do is sort of let her do that job in terms of supporting her in that job and her staff i think that comes in two areas one they really have to champion the funding this office is drastically under funded even state offices have more money and more employees allocated to them than this office has pennsylvania has about ten full time employees connecticut about twenty to accomplish the same tasks on a much smaller scale i also think it's going to be important if they can do it to get this office back  downtown it's a wonderful facility in college park but these folks are going to have to meet with other agencies you know there was there was just discussion in the prior panel about meetings with the cia well that means you have to get from cia from college park to langley anyone who's ever done that rush hour traffic because it's almost impossible to get things done if you waste half your day doing it so i think that could really help them accomplish their mission if they have more accessibility to other agencies thank you  journalists an author's it simply means that information doesn't get out to the public it means that rate waiting for necessary information will either result in the short cutting of deadlines or the short cutting of publication or the missing deadlines out right in either case the public is the one that loses out is the they lose valuable information that they would be reading in stories about another more indirect effect and that is that for journalist and author is there going to now need to go more often to secondary sources to obtain information some of those people may not want to talk on the record that really does our members a disservice in not being able to put the most credible publication forward but also of course has led to other problems that we've seen in other areas needing you know needing the passage of a federal shield law things like that to protect journalists that are covering government i think that that we could help all of these problems out by ensuring that more of the direct primary source information gets out to the public immediately for that response and openness and frankness when you think about the nara facilities i think there's one every ten thousand square miles of new united states if you look at the total area and if you look at the internet nara is everywhere on the internet and today public means online if we are going to make materials available we have to make them available on the internet and that's a problem i have when we put a five year lean on the public domain materials such as a deal with amazon cause well scanning is something that has several effects first of all it does provide public access it also means that the storage requirements are significantly less the state of the art today is about ten cents a page for paper documents to scan them run them through  and make them available i believe if not and the library of congress and others were to engage in large scale scanning that cost per page could get down to a nickel maybe even lower and it's something that would have a tremendous benefit and it would be as i said before