The American Historical Association announces the following “Late Breaking Session” (with LHB Founder Mary Dudziak) at its upcoming annual meeting in Chicago:
Federal Agency Records: Who Decides What Is Kept? Saturday, January 5, 2019: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM. Adams Room (Palmer House Hilton, Sixth Floor)
Recent discussions in the news and online forums have promulgated misunderstandings about NARA's process for approving the records schedules of federal agencies. The Chief Records Officer for the U.S. Government, Laurence Brewer, would like to present a session to discuss recent controversial records schedules and the process NARA uses to ensure that agency records are preserved for historical posterity. Specific areas Mr. Brewer will touch on include NARA's internal directive on records appraisal (NARA 1441); interactions with the public and external stakeholders to promote transparency and engagement with the scheduling process, and technological and process improvements that NARA is currently working on to modernize scheduling and appraisal within the Government.
Chair
Trudy H. Peterson, consulting archivist
Panel
Laurence Brewer, National Archives and Records Administration
Mary L. Dudziak, Emory University
Chris Prom, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
