Digital Access to National Records

I’m going to write this week’s blog on one of the my favorite subjects; digitization of archival records. Recently the National Archives and Records Administration posted on their blog NARAtions about questions and concerns researchers have about their partnership with commercial entities to digitize records. (The May 13, 2010 blog entry.) The concerns range from quality of the images and indexing to why the NARA has partnered with commercial databases.

When these partnerships were first announced I remember genealogical message boards and blogs being filled with comments on how citizens’ rights to access government documents was being limited by having outside groups that charge for access digitizing national records. The best answer to these concerns is that access to national records is still unlimited, but users of Ancestry.com, Footnote.com, and other database services are paying for the convenience of accessing these records at home. This is nothing new. To order a Civil War pension record from the National Archives costs $75. But if you visit the archives in person you just have to pay the copying fees. Obviously it’s cheaper to go in person, but for many the $75 is more convenient. While researchers have a right to access these records there is nothing that states the government has to give them free access online. Unfortunately many researchers have come to expect just that. While the internet is a great tool to genealogy researchers it is just, “The tip of the iceberg.”

I have to agree that there is reasonable concern about the quality of the digitization and indexing. Particularly on Ancestry.com which has a history of using non-English speakers to index records. For this reason abbreviations for Indiana have been indexed as India. Sad but true. The NARA answers these concerns by stating their goals and methodology for providing users with the best quality images and indexes.

Ultimately these partnerships are for the better. Companies like Ancestry and groups like Family Search have the resources to digitize that the NARA does not. Both groups now use volunteers to index so not only can Americans have greater access to historic records but they can help expand this access. Many libraries have memberships to Ancestry.com so if you want convenience without the high cost visit your library!

Salinas, CA librarian's reaction to child viewing pornography.

Recently, a librarian in California was accused of slapping a ten-year-old she caught looking at pornography (Click here to read the news article). While this incident quickly reignites the debate over filtering on library computers what I want to focus on is the actions of the librarians mentioned in the article. First, I cannot blame the librarian for being "shocked" when coming across a child viewing pornography. I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt that she only put her hand on his back. But this incident clearly shows that librarians need to be very careful how they react in such situations particularly with children. Unfortunately, after searching the Salinas library's web page I could not find their internet use policy. I was curious if there were any limits on children's internet usage that would have prevented this incident.
What really stood out to me was the fact that librarians regularly look over the shoulders of patrons using the internet. Clearly patrons do not have full privacy. But most of all this situation puts librarians into the role of policing what patrons are viewing. Which can be uncomfortable for all involved. I feel librarians need to protect the rights of patrons to view materials of their choosing, but also protect patrons from having to view materials they do not want to see. With most internet terminals being in public areas this can be difficult. The best solution is to have a well stated internet use policy and educate all internet users. Librarians should know how to react to these situations before they happen to avoid what happened in this case.