I returned to Washington this morning and made my way straight to the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill to meet the Historian of the Senate, Don Ritchie. Don showed me their recently renovated office and introduced me to various other members of their staff. They are the people behind the online Biographical Directory of the US Congress, which is a fantastic resource that I often point students towards. They maintain files on every member of Congress, which are open to researchers to access, as well as
managing a huge oral history project. Don then took me down to visit the Senate Library, which primarily serves Senators and Congressional staffers, but also sometimes members of the press and researchers too. They are open whenever the Senate is in session (even if that means 2am!), and as well as a vastly comprehensive collection of Congressional publications, they have an extensive reference collection and a wide range of magazines and journals to support the needs of Senators.

After visiting the library, Don very kindly took me across to the Capitol building to give me a tour. It was fascinating to have such an expert guide to the history of the building, and as well as the main areas that the tour groups get to see, I got to see a bit more behind the scenes as well. I've been really struck already by how welcoming people are being and how generous of their time, and this was yet another example.

I spent the afternoon at the National Archives building on Pennsylvania Avenue. I first spent some time talking to Nancy Smith, who is the Director of Presidential Materials and was able to tell me a great deal about the Presidential Libraries and the regulations, restrictions, and legislation under which Presidential papers are made available. I didn't realise before that there is a difference between the libraries for Presidents pre-1981 and those from Reagan forward, which have a whole lot more regulations governing their operations. Nancy gave me a very useful article which she had written explaining these, which I will take back and read and inwardly digest in order to improve my understanding of this whole area, which I think is crucial to be aware of in order to know what material is and isn't available to researchers. Nigel Bowles, the Director at the RAI, has suggested that Nancy come to Oxford at some point to give a presentation to students about the Presidential libraries, which she sounds keen to do, and which would be hugely valuable for our students. Nancy also gave me quite an insight into the work involved in making the Presidential documents and archives available, from the exponentially increasing amount of material (which email has exacerbated enormously - there are some 177 million pages of email from the George W Bush administration), which is all reviewed manually, to the tension between the desires of the private funders and the public needs and role of the libraries, and to the way she has to go to the White House on Inauguration Day to be on hand to advise as the archives of one administration are packed up and handed over. I learnt a lot from Nancy's expertise in this area in my time with her this afternoon.

After meeting with Nancy I had the opportunity to have a personal guided tour of the exhibits, including the Rotunda where the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights are housed, and finished off by meeting Lee Ann Potter, who is in charge of their education and outreach. They have a fantastic learning centre and do a lot of really great work with all sorts of visitors at all levels, from families with small children to schools to students and tourists and genealogists and researchers. It was interesting and inspiring to see how much importance the National Archives places on the various ways to make their collections accessible to all sorts of people and demonstrate just what kind of material they hold. Lee Ann also made the point that this kind of work also helps them understand who is interested in their collections and thereby better tailor what they do to the needs of their various users. I'm looking forward to following this afternoon with my day at the Archives facility in College Park on Thursday.