Go Dominic and Wikimedians! Though obviously we are not so scalable.
What next?
Katie
Begin forwarded message:
> From: The White House <info(a)messages.whitehouse.gov>
> Date: January 20, 2012 6:27:44 PM EST
> To: filbertk(a)gmail.com
> Subject: Petition Response: Digitizing Federal Public Records
> Reply-To: The White House <info(a)messages.whitehouse.gov>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Digitizing Federal Public Records
> By David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States
>
> Thank you for signing a petition asking the Obama Administration to
> digitize all public records.
>
> The Obama Administration believes increasing access to our
> collections by digitizing our records is a great idea. Our most
> recent efforts to do this ourselves as part of our OpenGov
> initiative, include the Citizen Archivist project, a Wikipedian in
> Residence, Tag it Tuesdays, and Scanathons. We are also moving
> forward on implementing the President’s recent Memorandum on Managin
> g Government Records, which focuses on the need to update policies a
> nd practices for the digital age.
>
> But all those things aren’t enough. Your petition, and the Yes We Sc
> an effort broadly, calls for a national strategy, and even a Federal
> Scanning Commission, to figure out what it would take to digitize t
> he holdings of many federal entities, from the Library of Congress t
> o the Government Printing Office to the Smithsonian Institution.
>
> These ideas bring up a host of questions that still need to be
> answered: What should the National Archives’ priorities be? Do we fo
> cus on preserving deteriorating paper records, still bound with red
> ribbons from two centuries ago? Do we make digital copies of Vietnam
> Era film footage? Should we focus on preserving those older paper r
> ecords while citizens volunteer to digitize more recent, and better
> preserved, records?
>
> The National Archives – which houses the Nation’s permanent
> records – is looking for your input to help answer these important q
> uestions on how we move forward. What are your thoughts on how the N
> ational Archives and other agencies should proceed? What questions s
> hould we be asking ourselves?
>
> You can add your thoughts over on the National Archives blog, and I’
> m looking forward to having a longer discussion with the creators an
> d signers of this petition on this important issue in the coming wee
> ks– more details on that will follow.
>
> Thank you again for your interest in this important issue. I’m looki
> ng forward to your ideas on how we can proceed with digitizing feder
> al public records.
>
> Check out this response on We the People.
>
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