About the National Archives

Remarks of Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero at a pre-conference in the implementation of the Encoded Archival Context – Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families schema. Washington, D. C.

August 9, 2010

Who is the Archivist?

David S. Ferriero

David S. Ferriero The Archivist of the United States is the head of our agency, appointed by the President of the United States.

The AOTUS Blog
What's an Archivist?

Good morning.

I am David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and I want to welcome all of you to the National Archives. It’s a pleasure to see such a broad spectrum of information professionals gathered here—archivists, librarians, information technology specialists, scholars, educators, and students.

We’re all here because concerns about preserving, organizing, and sharing information cuts across a wide swath of professions.

Earlier this year, the EAC-CPF Working Group released its schema for archival contextual information. Now, you turn to the important work of implementation. Today’s conference serves as a forum to consider issues of collaboration, both nationally and regionally, to promote the EAC standard, to build consensus, and define the leadership role to be played by the larger institutional participants.

While looking at possibilities for future applications, we are fortunate to have the examples of our world-wide partners—the European consortium APEnet and People Australia in fostering collaboration across public and private heritage institutions to promote access to their holdings.

Meetings such as today’s program are valuable ways to share practical experiences and new ideas and make personal connections for future collaboration. How research institutions in the future will describe their holdings for meaningful access depends on the contributions of all of you.

The National Archives is pleased to host this meeting and stands alongside its Washington, D.C., partners—the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian—in supporting the EAC Working Group and the wider authorities cataloging community as they promote implementation of the new standard.

Today’s program would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of its co-planners: Jerry Simmons, NARA’s Team Lead for Authority Cataloging in the Archival Research Catalog, and Kathy Wisser of Simmons College in Boston, the EAC-CPF Working Group Chair.

I’ll now turn you over to Kathy to kick off today’s proceedings.

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