A PAN reader has emailed a letter sent out by the American Federation of Government Employees Council of National Archives Locals regarding the recent shakeups to staff at The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Here PAN reporter, UK based documentary researcher Steve Bergson, looked into the situation.
‘Like a lot of US federal institutions, the National Archive or NARA (the National Archives and Records Administration), is coming under increased pressure now to conform with the tenor of the political times. Since being established in 1934, NARA’s mission has always been to mange, preserve and make available films created and collected by government agencies, as well as films donated to the archives. Much of this collection which includes photographs and moving pictures is in the public domain making it accessible to all researchers from around the world, even though it is funded with US tax dollars. This makes for an often complex equation for overseas film and TV producers making projects partly funded by US broadcasters like Discovery or the Smithsonian Channel.
On February 7, the Archivist of the United States, Dr. Colleen Shogan, was dismissed with immediate effect from her position, with the White House providing no reason for the sacking. Subsequently the acting Archivist, Jay Bosanko resigned, following which Secretary of State Marco Rubio was appointed as Acting Archivist. Whether or not, this development has anything to do with a move to politicise the avowedly neutral role, the implications for users of the archive could be profound. The whole concept of public domain is so much more deeply ingrained in the US psyche in comparison to the rest of the world so any push in the direction of limiting access to those projects deemed politically sympathetic would meet strong opposition from the global client base. It would move the Archive into the same domain as corporate PR departments that wish to approve the editorial line of any project which sought to use its material. It would represent a massive change of policy and also alter the financial equation of much production, especially of historical film and TV documentaries made in and for an international market.
On the scale of federal agencies that the new US administration wants to trim, NARA is very small beer, but the implications for cultural output could be huge. There’s no mistaking that such change is coming to the shock of the whole world as well as the USA.’