Thread by @ReclaimTheRecs

This is gonna be one of those Twitter threads where we rag on @USNatArchives again.

Here's an example of NARA giving out false information about records access, and worse, doing so in a way that prioritizes records given to companies rather than those made publicly available. 1/

NARA runs a question-and-answer website called "History Hub" where people can ask about NARA's records collections and get suggestions for research.

Someone asked if they could get some transcribed 1910 Census data, just for one small town in Florida: 2/
historyhub.history.gov/thread/3541

The NARA archivist in that thread replied by saying a bunch of problematic stuff, all of which boils down to "no" -- and all of which is wrong.

Wrong in facts and wrong in approach, too.

Wrong in ways that show a broken culture around records access. 3/

First, she immediately pointed the requestor to a very expensive paywalled commercial website (@Ancestry) and a free but login-protected website (@FamilySearch) as her main go-to for the 1910 census data! She said the researcher can go download PDF's of the census there. 4/

Sure, if you log in to either of those websites (if you have an account), you can download images of the 1910 census -- as JPG's, not PDF's, but let's not be picky.

It's just...NARA'S OWN CATALOG has the data online, too, and FREE -- and she didn't point the requestor there. 5/

See, they're right here, ID T624:

catalog.archives.gov/search?q=T624&…

And these 1910 census records are even linked from NARA's own "Digitized By Partners" page: 6/

archives.gov/digitization/d…

Furthermore, the image quality of the digitized census sheets available for download in NARA's own catalog are actually better than the ones available for download at Ancestry or FamilySearch! 7/

We downloaded 1910 census images from the three sites, to compare.

- Ancestry's are 4092 × 2716 (1.4 MB)
- FamilySearch's are 5864 × 3912 (2.2 MB)
- NARA's own images in their own catalog are 5600x3996 (8.2 MB)

Why would anyone not point to the better-quality AND free copy? 8/

Okay, fine, but the original requestor/researcher clearly wanted TRANSCRIBED data for that one town from the 1910 census. Not scanned images.

So maybe it doesn't really matter what image the archivist points them to, whether on a for-profit paywalled site or NARA's own site. 9/

Except...

...one little detail...

NARA does have the transcribed data from the 1910 census.

Yes. Transcribed. Not just images.

And every other census, too. They have it.

It's legally public data.

And some of it is even in their own catalog!

See?
catalog.archives.gov/id/91594920
10/

When NARA made the "Digitization Partnership Agreements" the contracts said these for-profit + non-profit partners could get "first dibs" exclusive access to the records for a number of years. That's problematic, but let's ignore that for a sec.

They said something else too. 11/

The contracts also said the partners would give NARA hard drives with ALL THE NEWLY SCANNED IMAGES AND THE TRANSCRIBED DATA on them.

Which means EVERY record

EVERY RECORD

that @Ancestry / @FamilySearch / @fold3 has ever scanned for NARA, if > 5 years old, should be public. 12/

"After...an embargo period, NARA gains unrestricted rights to the digital copies and the associated metadata transmitted to NARA by the partner, including the right to give or sell digital copies in whole or part to other entities, if NARA so chooses." 13/
archives.gov/digitization/p…

And actually, NARA doesn't get to "so choose".

Those "digital copies" (the images) and "the associated metadata" (the transcribed data) are not under copyright. They belong to taxpayers.

And in a perfect world, they'd all be in the NARA catalog already. 14/

But they're not all there in the catalog, either due to incompatibilities in how metadata was originally recorded or gets added, or understaffing, or budget constraints, or whatever the excuse is today.

But SOME of it is there! Including 1910 census images AND METADATA. 15/

So, to sum up!

If a member of the public asks a NARA archivist in a NARA-run question-and-answer website about something as major and widely-used as old census data, and where one can get a copy of it, whether images or metadata, there need to be giant red flags raised if... 16/

...the archivist immediately points to $300/year paywalled commercial website for that public data! whose scans are actually far lower quality than the copies NARA has! and by the way, those images are already in the NARA catalog! and NARA even has copies of the metadata! 17/

If the frickin' NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES cannot even field a simple question like "where can I, a taxpayer, get some old census data, a type of public data commanded by the US Constitution" without pointing to the Ancestry paywall, then we are in very bad shape. 18/

Finally, we at Reclaim The Records would like to point out to you, genealogist/historian friends, and to @USNatArchives as well, that just because not all of those hard drives of images and metadata have made their way into the NARA catalog yet, even after all these years... 19/

...well, that doesn't mean they're not somehow available to anyone who wants to file a nice big juicy FOIA request for them.

Or perhaps even a lawsuit for them.

Know anyone like that? 😘
20/20