CIL2010: Paul Holdengraber interview with David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States

April 13, 2010

CIL2010: Paul Holdengraber interview with David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States

Ferriero is the Archivist of the United States, has worked at academic institutions for most of his career, but also worked at NYPL for 5 years. In fact, he used to be Holdengraber’s boss.

There are 44 facilities in the archive. Ferriero is “the highest ranking librarian in the administration…nay, the only librarian in the administration.” Holdengraber replied “well, we can change that.”

His job has had a big focus on declassification since he started. Here’s how he got the job: He received a phone call from the White House offering him the job of the Archivist of the United States, thought about it over the weekend, and someone from Obama’s transition team came out to meet with him and said that Obama wanted someone who was excited about change and technology, who thought outside of the box. The Obama administration excited him, and when they called him back in June, they said “The President is in Saudi Arabia and is thinking about you and wants you to be the Archivist of the United States.”

Obama has given Ferriero two new missions for the Archive. The first mission is the open government initiative. The Obama administration is requiring all agencies to move toward the open government initiative with three pillars in mind: transparency, collaboration, and participation. The approach is to move with a groundswell of talent and ideas from the ground up through the different agencies. He’s thinking about how they process and make available their collections. A big part of that has been through social media, including his own blog, through which he shares info on what they are doing in his agencies. There was some concern when he was appointed because he is a librarian and not an archivist.

400 million pages that need to be declassified. Holdengraber asked how he is approaching the project. Everything needs to be declassified with the sole exception of national security. There are 250 agencies in the federal government with 2400 different classification guides on what remains classified and what doesn’t. Those guides are supposed to be revised every 5 years, but half of them don’t meet that standard. “We have a flawed classification system. Those of you who have dealt with a FOIA request know that.” This has included using technology to expedite the process.

Holdengraber asked what kind of direction the Obama administration has given the Archives, vs. other previous administration. You can’t have open government without good records. This means ensuring that the records are being prepared to be migrated through various technologies. It also means that when IT systems are being developed in each agency, that records are given immediate consideration and aren’t an afterthought. The Chief Information Officers from each agency and the Records Management Officers from each agency have never met together as a group. Ferriero has started having those two groups meet which has created more communication and forward movement.

The first National Archivist in FDR’s administration naturally told all of the different agencies to begin to deposit their records in the national archive. They basically ignored him. FDR had a cabinet meeting where he told the agency heads “You will deposit your records in the national archive.” We’re now at a similar junction. Many agencies have developed & purchased their own systems and technologies and are all doing different things. There needs to be unity.

Holdengraber presented a quote from Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones: “When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church that belongs to God and the public library that belongs to you. The public library is the great equalizer.”

The Archive is doing a lot for education and children. They are currently doing a website redesign with the K-12 community in mind, are opening an exhibit on the Civil War which will also have an online version. “Getting kids excited about the records is a way to teach about American history but also about citizenship.” There are many tours, Ferriero meets with classes and teachers, and he encourages them to write letters to Obama.

Ferriero has not met Obama yet. “It’s nice having a boss down the street, but not in my face.” (*crowd explodes*).

Holdengraber asked what Ferriero is doing with staff to motivate them and guide their work. Ferriero is currently doing a tour of all 44 facilities and finding out what the issues are from the staff. He has had a 77% participation rate in a survey he created to find out how things are going and what needs changing. He saw that one of his staff members was posting on Facebook about “Why should I participate in this survey?” and so he friended that person and started the conversation asking the employee to give him a chance.

In a Provost speech that Ferriero gave,entitled “Losing Our Memory.” The Provost had said: “In the digital environment, everything is saved, but little is preserved.” In Ferriero’s speech, he said: “Clearly we need to save better and preserve more, and not the other way around.” Since 1996 Presidential Records Act, Email has been recognized as a record. On the Federal side, email is still not recognized as a valid record. He doesn’t think we’re saving what we need to save, and therefore losing valuable records.

Ferriero has a problem with sites like Ancestry.com and Google Books, with whom the Archive has partnerships. They have created standard languages that locks up the content for a specified period of time (5 years for Ancestry & longer for Google). From the Archive’s perspective these are public records. Ferriero is concerned about locking federal documents up. If he had his way, everything in the Archive would be digitized. They are 2 years away from their contract renewal with Ancestry.com and have to decide what they’re going to do — keep it or not?

Ferriero does a lot online but says “There is something aesthetic about print on page that is not, for me, been replaced electronically.” He says “Wikipedia is my favorite tool and Google is my first line of defense.”

He is currently reading Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. Just before that he read a book about Walt Whitman and his siblings. The author used Whitman’s wife’s letters to Whitman, which points a picture of her which hasn’t really existed until now because her letters have never been used before in scholarship.

Holdengraber asked what Ferriero’s greatest worry is. The answer is “electronic records.” It’s the most visible and expensive thing that the Archive has to get right. The biggest joy? Getting to know the staff and looking at the collection itself.

Holdengraber asked what recommendation Ferriero would have for librarians to do, to pay attention to books. He said “You need to push your supervisors. Look for opportunities to get involved and get your ideas out there. The folks at the top need to be pushed. I’m a guy at the top who is being pushed by my staff, and that’s the only way we’re going to be able to do what we’re supposed to be doing.”

Holdengraber asked Ferriero what he looks for in hiring choices. He said that his best hiring choice was Josh Greenberg (?) was his Director of Digital Strategies at NYPL. He learned so much from Greenberg, so many different ideas and truly a new way of looking at the world.

The directorship of NYPL is currently open, so Holdengraber asked Ferriero what his next job will be. In a NYT article, Ferriero said that his only next job could be at the Vatican…and not at the library