Brandon Johnson
Latest Reviews
This place is the shizz for primary sources on U.S. governmental and military history. Read the website thoroughly and nothing will surprise you. The employees are mostly very courteous and helpful. But you know all this already.
Here are some things you don’t know if you haven’t gone but that you should know before you arrive to hammer out that sick research project of yours:
1. Air Force One will rust out before this building sees a single spot of moisture damage. The textual reading room was so dehumidified I essentially spent a week reading documents at 35,000ft so far as my sinuses and skin were concerned. Maybe bring eye drops, lotion—not into the reading room, fools!—and stay hydrated on that cool drinking fountain water. It took me two days to realize I didn’t have a sore throat and wasn’t actually getting sick.
2. In the textual reading room keep your head down and don’t attract the attention of the “Guardians”. These NARA employees have the same practical responsibilities as everyone else including meandering around the room to make sure you’re not being an idiot with the National Archives, but there’s a fundamental difference between the two. The Guardians survey the researchers in the reading room not like a loving hen checking in on her chicks like most of the help but like a starving lion scans a herd of unsuspecting gazelles. God help the weakest among us who overlooked a rule. Survival of the fittest. It’s a moisture-less jungle in there.
3. Use the stairs. Screw the miserably slow elevator, but don’t drop your tech because you’re in a hurry. This didn’t happen to me, but I imagined it happening because everything has to be brought in without a case. How much would it suck to come from wherever else in the country (or world) to do research here only to ruin your scanner or camera or laptop on your maiden voyage up the stairs to the reading room? Go slow but not as slow as the elevator.
4. If you can handle a little extra noise, sit close to the circulation desk so that you don’t have to waste time navigating your fully loaded, payload of a cart through a maze of other carts, desks, and innocent bystanders. First come, first serve.
5. At the NARA it’s not easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Ask permission, and when they tell you no don’t fight it.
6. The borrowable scanners do not work with big documents. Think 8.5” x 11” Watergate-sized papers. If you do borrow a scanner, save yourself thirty minutes and ask for a binder with the software installation instructions.
7. Foam is your friend. Let the foam love the spines of those decomposing massive volumes from the 19th century collections.
8. Don’t cram important work into the last hour of business (4p-5p). The recorded voice announcing the imminent closure of the Archives is terrifyingly reliable, and it doesn’t give a rat’s a** that you haven’t photographed the last consular instruction sent to Constantinople in the 1890s. Come back to it tomorrow.
9. If there is no tomorrow, skip
lunch.
10. If you did skip lunch and there’s no tomorrow, disregard number 8.
11. The sign in front of the research room with pictures of individuals who have been prosecuted and jailed for stealing records is badass. The Guardians are waiting to make a citizen’s arrest.
Here are some things you don’t know if you haven’t gone but that you should know before you arrive to hammer out that sick research project of yours:
1. Air Force One will rust out before this building sees a single spot of moisture damage. The textual reading room was so dehumidified I essentially spent a week reading documents at 35,000ft so far as my sinuses and skin were concerned. Maybe bring eye drops, lotion—not into the reading room, fools!—and stay hydrated on that cool drinking fountain water. It took me two days to realize I didn’t have a sore throat and wasn’t actually getting sick.
2. In the textual reading room keep your head down and don’t attract the attention of the “Guardians”. These NARA employees have the same practical responsibilities as everyone else including meandering around the room to make sure you’re not being an idiot with the National Archives, but there’s a fundamental difference between the two. The Guardians survey the researchers in the reading room not like a loving hen checking in on her chicks like most of the help but like a starving lion scans a herd of unsuspecting gazelles. God help the weakest among us who overlooked a rule. Survival of the fittest. It’s a moisture-less jungle in there.
3. Use the stairs. Screw the miserably slow elevator, but don’t drop your tech because you’re in a hurry. This didn’t happen to me, but I imagined it happening because everything has to be brought in without a case. How much would it suck to come from wherever else in the country (or world) to do research here only to ruin your scanner or camera or laptop on your maiden voyage up the stairs to the reading room? Go slow but not as slow as the elevator.
4. If you can handle a little extra noise, sit close to the circulation desk so that you don’t have to waste time navigating your fully loaded, payload of a cart through a maze of other carts, desks, and innocent bystanders. First come, first serve.
5. At the NARA it’s not easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Ask permission, and when they tell you no don’t fight it.
6. The borrowable scanners do not work with big documents. Think 8.5” x 11” Watergate-sized papers. If you do borrow a scanner, save yourself thirty minutes and ask for a binder with the software installation instructions.
7. Foam is your friend. Let the foam love the spines of those decomposing massive volumes from the 19th century collections.
8. Don’t cram important work into the last hour of business (4p-5p). The recorded voice announcing the imminent closure of the Archives is terrifyingly reliable, and it doesn’t give a rat’s a** that you haven’t photographed the last consular instruction sent to Constantinople in the 1890s. Come back to it tomorrow.
9. If there is no tomorrow, skip
lunch.
10. If you did skip lunch and there’s no tomorrow, disregard number 8.
11. The sign in front of the research room with pictures of individuals who have been prosecuted and jailed for stealing records is badass. The Guardians are waiting to make a citizen’s arrest.