Image: Letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Robert Diggs Wembly Connor, 13 February 1942, Folder 668, Box 8 in the R. D. W. Connor Papers #2427, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
FDR’s Big Hairy Audacious Goal
Robert D.W. Connor, the President of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and recently retired first Archivist of the United States, in his address to the Society at their annual meeting in 1942 read a letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt who had been awarded an honorary membership in the organization. He called for “…the duplication of records by modern processes…”
FDR acknowledged the magnitude of effort required: “This involves, of course, a vast amount of work because of the volume of federal, state and local archives of all kinds—but I think that a broad plan would meet with hearty public support if it could be properly publicized.”
Which brings to mind the language in our draft Strategic Plan, one of the objectives under our goal of Making Access Happen. In an effort to make an ever-increasing number of records available to the public we have promised to streamline processes, innovate, and collaborate with others to significantly increase the number of NARA records that are available to the public. In fact, we have been so bold as to suggest that we “Digitize all analog archival records and make them available online to the public.” This a stretch goal, an aspirational goal.
In the language of James Collins and Jerry Porras, this is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). “A true BHAG is clear and compelling, serves as a unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines.”
I’m the first to parrot FDR and acknowledge the vast amount of work required. And, at the same time, I point out the advances in technology which now enable this work, the new opportunities for partnerships and collaborations, the emerging roles of our citizen archivists, the vision of the Digital Public Library of America, etc. Most importantly, I understand that for our user base, there is an expectation and increasing demand to have our content available online.
The National Archives was created with the intent of making the records of the country available so that citizens can hold their government accountable for their actions, so that we can learn from the past, and to discover our own stories in the records. Just think about how that mission will be enhanced with even more digital access. Let’s make it happen!
Read the full post on the AOTUS blog.
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