SPEAKER_01 0:00

I think the the biggest thing to remember is that the reason that we preserve all of these records is for the people. We are what's called the stewards of them. We, as you know, federal government employees or state or local, we are preserving these things for the people to use. And if they're not being used, that somewhat defeats the purpose. So seek out the materials when you need them, when you're curious.

Bridget Finn 0:45

Public records shape how we understand history, accountability, and community. From the highest levels of government to the minutes taken at a local city council meeting. Today, on the Rockford Public Library podcast, we're joined by Jill Zawaki, supervisory archivist at the Barack Obama Presidential Library, U.S. National Archives. Jill is part of a team of federal archivists partnering with Rockford Public Library this fall for the Your Government, Your Records Workshop Series RPL is offering in celebration of America's 250th year. Jill works day in and day out with the records that comprise our national story. Today, we're pulling back the curtain on what Jill's work actually looks like and how everyday Rockford residents like you and I can access these same resources ourselves. Hi, Jill. Hi! Welcome to the Rockford Public Library Podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, we're thrilled to have you today. Um, for listeners who've never set foot in a presidential library, what does an archivist actually do day to day?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

So even though we are called presidential libraries, we are technically archives, which means we hold historical documents, papers, records, not books that you could check out at your public library. So it's a little bit of a misnomer, but um we preserve and make available for people to do research the records of the federal government.

Bridget Finn 2:32

And what's the most surprising or memorable thing that you've found while processing government records?

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Well, I have worked, so I have been with the National Archives, which is a federal government agency that is the nation's record keeper. Um, and I've been with that agency for almost 20 years in a variety of different offices. So depending on which office and which location where you work, you're working with different types of records that come from different areas of the government. Um in the main locations of the National Archives in the Washington, D.C. area, and then there are regional archives around the country. Those are working with records of federal agencies and maintaining those collections. Whereas at a presidential library, you're working directly with the records that came out of the White House. The majority of my career, I've been in presidential libraries, a few different ones, um, but I did work briefly in other divisions of NARA too. So um I would say this is rather timely. Um, but prior to coming to the Obama library, I worked for the George W. Bush Library, which is in Dallas, Texas. And one of the first things that an archival team does when you're getting ready to start processing what we call working with the records, is you do an inventory. You're looking at the material, looking at the folders, making sure are they described in a way that is accurate. Um, so we were working with some boxes and just starting that inventory process. And we, other colleagues and myself, opened a folder that had President Bush's notes from September 11th. All of the different space places he stopped throughout that day because he moved to a variety of places to maintain safety, and all of the notes from the very beginning when he was at the elementary school in Florida, to the military bases, to his notes that he used for the address to the nation finally that evening. And that logically, when you think about it, yes, this was something that occurred during his presidency. There were records, the law says those should be preserved and turned turned over to the National Archives. So they should have been in the collection, but you don't always think, like, oh gosh, I could I could find that, or those should be here, we should look for them. And we opened up those folders, and it was moments like that really take take your breath away. Um, similarly, at the Obama library, um, of course, there are a number of other significant events, but um, a lot of the president's speech drafts, um, he was very involved in his speechwriting process in terms of marking up the various drafts and sending them back and forth with his speechwriting team until they got to a final product. And um when you know, doing that inventory and going through the boxes and assessing everything and coming across the notes from the speech that he ultimately delivered at the memorial service for the Sandy Hook victims. Those is another moment where you know, you just you catch your breath, you you feel a little pang in your heart because you remember some of the most difficult days of being an American. And that's not to say that there aren't also many, many records of the wonderful things that happen in our country's history. Um, but those are just two that that really stand out.

Bridget Finn 6:42

Wow, that's remarkable. Um, the Obama Presidential Library is the first fully digital presidential library. What does that change about how you preserve and share records compared to earlier libraries?

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Sure. So the Obama Library is under a new model, meaning that we don't have a physical brick and mortar standalone building. Um, the presidents prior to us, typically when they left office, they would fundraise, construct a building, and then donate the building itself or a portion of it back to the government to store the records, artifacts, and the staff that works to preserve them. President Obama chose to go a slightly different model where he constructed a presidential center, but is operating that privately. So there is no storage space for the government materials. Those are all stored at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, um, which is a very large facility that stores many, many different collections of records. So to make things available, because we don't have that standalone space, we are in the process of digitizing all of our records and artifacts. And digitizing can mean different things depending on the material. So for the paper records, those we are scanning. We have a variety of models of scanners, some are high speed, some are flatbed, all different kinds that we are turning those pieces of paper into a digital image. And then our artifact team follows other recommended standards to photograph the 3D objects. And um those are done all with um recommended light levels and all of the museum standards for care of artifacts and for photography. So we are trying to make things as accessible as possible online, and luckily a significant portion of our holdings were also already born digital, so we don't have to convert them or change format at all. We also, at the end of a presidential administration, receive, in addition to the physical boxes of material, we receive the electronic records that are generated by the White House. So all of the emails that are sent by White House staff, the computer files that they use individually, and then the share drives that the different offices use. So that is also a significant amount of material that is preserved through one of the National Archives electronic record systems. And we don't have to do any major conversion to that to make them available. So we are focusing on getting the material as it can be released to the public, because there is a process to that, um, hosted on our library's website, which is obamalibrary.gov. We have a digital research room which features all of the archival record content, be it originally paper, electronic, or audiovisual, because we have a significant amount of A B material as well. And then we also have a digital artifacts collection that is being populated with all of those records and the details about our artifacts, too.

Bridget Finn 10:45

Okay. So um what do you imagine is the biggest misconception that people have about accessing presidential records? And what would you want them to understand about it?

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Presidential records or really ever any government record, I think a misconception or at least a misunderstanding is that they can really be intimidating, that you you don't have to know every single thing about how the government works, how the White House works, in order to be able to view these records and understand or request these records from your presidential library. That is why there are teams of people, such as myself and all of my fellow colleagues, that work and develop the expertise so that when you reach out to us with a question, we can help walk you through and explain and take out some of the confusion. So if you are a general citizen and you are just interested in a topic, you can always contact us and ask what information has been released. And if it is not everything that you would like to learn about, you could submit a Freedom of Information Act request for additional records. And my team would assist with that process and help going back and forth to have you narrow that request so that it is reaching the most responsive, the most useful records to you and what you want to know about. And um, and that goes for any presidential library or any division of the National Archives, whether you're doing a FOIA request or a general reference request, or even your local governments that you may want to request city or village council minutes or something like that. Um don't be intimidated by the bureaucracy because there's always going to be bureaucracy, but um seek out your professionals because they are there to help you.

Bridget Finn 13:16

That's great information. Um, but are there some records that will never be public or take decades and decades to become accessible, and others that are more accessible more immediately?

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yes, so this is kind of a multi-layered question. Um the Obama presidential records are governed by the Presidential Records Act, which was passed and implemented in 1978. So it went into effect with President Reagan and all presidents going forward from that. Um earlier presidents have a different system. And yes, there have been some recent discussions about the PRA and different legalities, um, but we are still following the um outlines of that. And the Presidential Records Act says that at the end of the administration, the president turns over all of the material to the National Archives, and there are provisions in that law about when records are to be made available and how the public can request them. So under the PRA, the first five years after a president leaves office, um, the records are closed to public requests. There are a few very special channels that records can be released, such as to the new incoming president. They have the ability to request those. Congress, the courts, and the former president himself can request records. But for the general public, they have to wait five years. And when the law was originally passed, Congress thought, oh, five years, that's going to be plenty of time. This staff will have all of these papers sorted out and organized and inventory to a T, and that's that's all the time they need. When you're looking at a collection of 25 million pages of paper, plus an additional 300 terabytes of electronic records plus significant amount of AV materials, five years is nowhere near enough time. There's just too much to manage. So what we do is, like I said, we do our best effort during those five years to really get the best inventory and sense of exactly what is in the boxes and in the folders so that at that five-year mark, the general public can start submitting Freedom of Information Act requests. And when someone submits a FOIA request, that spurs us to run a search. And we search across our collections or if people have narrowed their search into specific areas, looking for things related to the topics that they're interested in. So that's why it's key that we get an accurate inventory so that when we run those searches, we're actually hitting on the material a requester wants and not getting some sort of false positive. There are definitely people who set those alarms on their phones and their emails and say, hey, time for those Obama records. I can put my requests in. And we got a very large influx when we first became subject to FOIA, which was back in 2022. Um so we are continuing to work through all of the FOIA requests. We have a queue system where we process requests, somewhat first come, first serve with a few modifications to make sure that it's equitable. Um and when your request comes up for processing, we do have to do what's called a line-by-line review, which means that before anything can be released to the public, there have to be human eyeballs that read the records. Because some there are some types of information that needs to be restricted, specifically any personally identifiable information. Of course, we're not going to release anyone's social security number or birth date or things like that. So we want to be very, very sure that um those records are read. Of course, we don't want to release anything related to national security. So um they go through a very thorough screening. So information like that is protected under the law for certain periods of time. National security information is there is a whole process to get things declassified. Um, and that is done in consultation with other government agencies who may have provided the information originally. It's that can be a long process and it can take several decades or a long time to get certain information declassified depending on the sensitivity of that information. So the timeline exists to protect it. And of course, you know, personally identifiable information that is protected for as long as a person is still alive, at minimum, sometimes longer, depending if it would still be sensitive. Um, so those categories are a little more cut and dry. There's other categories of information that are more temporary. Um, and those kind of relate to different um advice the president may receive during his administration. So records containing advice relating to policy, those can be restricted for 12 years after the president leaves office. So those restrictions do expire and expire much sooner than the other ones I mentioned about national security and um PII. So after the 12 years, those records containing some of that advisory content would be released. And that is included in the Presidential Records Act as part of the law because they did not want to have what they called a chilling effect on government. They didn't want the former president or his staffers walking out the door of the White House and then records being released that could really affect the ongoing work or um things that still needed to happen to make government run. So they instituted a period of closure, but not an extended long-term period because the goal is still to get these records released, let people know about their country's history, and also for accountability reasons, um, all the reasons that the Freedom of Information Act exists and allow people to request information from their governments. So to circle back to your original question, yes, there are still categories of information that can be restricted for different periods of time. And some of those restrictions expire sooner than others based on the reason why information has to be withheld. But the goal is still to get information out there as quickly as possible. And I will say the US does move faster than a lot of other foreign governments with the way that they release their records. So we often get researchers coming from a foreign country wanting to look at the foreign policy records from the US side because they know they can view our records much sooner than they could in their home country.

Bridget Finn 21:11

Interesting. Wow. Um, you know, in the first session of our workshop series, uh, we're we've titled it Decode Democracy, Demystifying Government Records Meetings and Resources. That one will be held Wednesday, September 23rd from 5:30 till 6.30 in the WREX classroom on the second floor of the main library downtown. And in this session, attendees will receive kind of an overview or cursory understanding of the National Archives of Records Administration, the federal agency responsible for preserving and providing access to government and historical records. What's the difference between what NARA holds and what people commonly assume is a public record? And where do people get it wrong?

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Sure. So the National Archives, because we're the federal government records keeper, we focus at that federal government level. So we're not going to have the local city council minutes. We're not going to have the state laws that affect everything specific to your state. So voting, driver's licenses, all of that is done at the state level. We hold the federal government records. And Nera, while we have a huge, huge volume of stuff, we say we end up keeping maybe three percent overall of the federal records that are generated. And when I say federal, I'm talking about non-White House records. So materials from all the other parts of government and what they create to do their jobs. The presidential records are covered by that different law which says everything should be kept. So when you're thinking about working with government records, and this can be at any level, and what you're looking for and what you're trying to research, my first recommendation would be to sit back and think about how you interact with your government. So they have a city council meeting, the public could go to that meeting, the public could submit comments. Those would be a record that would be captured because people are interacting with their government. You file your tax returns, those both state level and federal. So that's how you interact with your government. The government isn't necessarily like doing a wide sweep to capture up a variety of outside records. They're looking at the ways that it directly interacts with its citizens. Um keeping in mind, and that also helps if you're doing genealogy research. Like think about how your ancestor may have interacted with their government. Did they an immigrant to the country and did they apply for citizenship? Okay, there would be records of that process. Did they submit information to a census taker when that was happening? There would be a record of that. So keeping that as kind of the scope and your focus can really help rather than just walking into a government records and being like, well, I'm looking for anything on, you know, this name. That can be really overwhelming and hard to search for. So thinking about that interaction is a good way to shape it.

Bridget Finn 24:53

Okay, that's fantastic. That that was kind of feeding into some questions I had about um if a person was researching their family. Um, so yeah, you you want to keep in mind that Nara is not the DMV. Um and you don't just go in like Google and drop your grandfather's name.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

You would want to think about how that person was interacting with the federal government, and that might give an idea of where we could start, like draft cards, perhaps, or um, like you said, and my my staff that are going to be working on this first session coming up next week. Um, some of them have experience working with NARA's military records, so they are prepared to give an overview on um if you are searching for your ancestors or even your own military records, um, give some tips and tricks on that.

Bridget Finn 25:45

That's excellent. That's a great thing for us to know. Thank you. Jill, what made you want to work in archives? Is there a moment that confirmed that you were on your in the right career?

SPEAKER_01 25:58

I started back in high school working in my hometown's public library. And I started as a page where I was, you know, refiling books and doing shelf reading, making sure everything was in order. Then I became uh a circulation clerk and did programming and really anything that they needed me to do. Um, and I really liked that. I liked serving the public, I liked the interaction and directing people to find the information that they needed. Because as I've mentioned, like there's information overload. And when I first started working in libraries, it was back in the Cover Wagon days, and it was nowhere near the amount of information overload that we have now, um, especially with AI emerging. Uh, so being the one that can help sift through and make it less overwhelming while ensuring that people get accurate information really appealed to me. So I I started off in college thinking I was going to be a teacher because my whole family is teachers, but then I kind of took a little turn and decided to go to library school. And when I was in grad school, I got a work study job at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library, which is on the campus of the University of Michigan. Um, so I was a student worker there, and that was my entree into presidential libraries and the National Archives and archives in general. And when I realized that world and everything about it, I really wanted to continue and I was lucky that I was able to continue that career. I won't say that it has been easy in that I've moved a lot. I've moved to different offices, I've been in DC a few times, I've moved to Texas, now I'm back in Illinois because I worked on different projects and with different records. And each of those has been a really unique experience that has reinforced that this is the work that I really wanted to do.

Bridget Finn 28:23

Mm-hmm. Um that's great, Jill. It sounds like you're exactly where you're in your zone of genius. Um so if someone leaves this podcast episode having learned just one thing, what do you think would be most useful for you know, maybe a Rackford resident who wants to look up a governmental record?

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Yeah. I think that the biggest thing to remember is that the reason that we preserve all of these records is is for the people. We are what's called the stewards of them. We, as you know, federal government employees or state or local, we are preserving these things for the people to use. And if they're not being used, that somewhat defeats the purpose. So seek out the materials when you need them, when you're curious. Like I said, um reach out to the professionals who help to manage these materials. If you're interested in local Rockford government records, um go to your county clerk's office, talk to your city council members. If you're interested in local history about the Rockford area, that main branch has a beautiful local history room and many staff who specialize in those resources. And don't just walk in and get overwhelmed and take a stab in the dark, talk to those professionals because that's what we're trained for, that's what we're there for, and that's what we love to do. This is our passion. And the same at the federal level. If you're interested in any of the presidents, um, certainly the National Archives manages the presidential library system from Hoover on forward, um, there is staff at each of those libraries who is just eager to talk to someone about their president. And we even for those outside the National Archives system, we can potentially connect you with other institutions who hold materials or other useful things. Um all of these things, like public records are for the public. And um the more that we we spread the word and people know what's available to them is is always a good thing.

Bridget Finn 30:55

Yeah, it's a great thing. Um, okay, so the second session in the Your Government, your records series is uh titled Logging On, Linking Digital Research Sources, and it will give attendees a clear overview of the digital resources available from the Obama Library, including the National Archives Catalog, the Obama Presidential Library Digital Research Room, and Digital Artifacts Collection, and frozen archived websites and social media profiles from the Obama administration. A reference librarian from Rockford Public Library will offer an overview of similar digital resources available at RPL. So this is a second session that'll be held Wednesday, October 21st in the same room, the WRX classroom on the second floor, Maine. And then the third and final session is Your Right to Know: A Guide to the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, which you've mentioned already. And that'll be at this in the same room at the 5 30 on Wednesday, November 18th. And Jill, you kind of you started to do this earlier in this interview where you talked us about the life cycle of a FOIA request. Um, and I love that the main message I'm receiving is not to be intimidated that I have access to these um records because this is my government and we all have access to our government records. Um, is there anything else about the life cycle of a FOIA request that you could share with us that might help us to use that form of information gathering?

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Um, like I I mentioned, you know, the more specific you can be about your FOIA request is is always better. And FOIA can be called different things at different levels of government. So Freedom of Information Act, which FOIA is the acronym, is specifically for federal government records. Um, states might call their laws something slightly different, but um records laws, information laws, things like that will usually get you there. And the more specific you are, the more likely you are to get what you want. So if you want to see the city council minutes where they talked about a specific topic, then make sure to go in with that specific topic or the dates of the meetings where you know it was discussed. Because if you go in and you say, I want all the city council minutes, well, that's gonna take a much longer time to gather and things like that. Same with presidential records. If if you're looking at um there's a very big difference between I want every record you have on healthcare, and I am looking for records on the implementation of the healthcare.gov website, those can produce very different amounts of results. And one of the big things to remember specifically about FOIA, but about any records request, is have patience. Unfortunately, these these can take a little time because of the volume of materials that we're all working with. And I'm lucky to work with a team with multiple archivists, and um, but sometimes these records offices are working with the staff of one or a person who is simultaneously trying to be the records officer and five other jobs. So we're we're all doing the best we can. And with FOIA requests, and I'm speaking specifically about the Obama Presidential Library, other agencies, offices may do things slightly different, but ours are roughly first come, first served. So when you submit your request, it goes into a queue, and the queue is based on um essentially the amount of material that comes up in the search. So somebody who comes in with a very specific request and there's 10 documents potentially responsive, you would go into the smallest line. And then there's another line for people with a medium amount and another line for people with very, very large requests. And that tries to keep it equitable between all of the different amounts because it's not fair for someone who's only wanting 10 documents to wait in line until I finish the request of someone who wants 10,000. We we do our best to try and balance that.

Bridget Finn 35:47

That's smart.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

But still, patience is always recommended. Um, anyone who's, you know, if you're working on your thesis or you're you're writing a book and you have a really specific deadline, we we can't make any guarantees that we will match deadlines. We do our best, but a lot is outside of our control, especially when you have overarching laws that govern your records, like the Presidential Records Act. It has a few um specific timelines we have to meet. But we are committed to getting this done. And um if you're interested in getting records faster, um, the best way to do that is to advocate for more resources for all of your government institutions to be able to serve the public better. So if you have like more presidential records released more quickly, please call all your Congress people and your senators and anybody else you can get a hold with and advocate and say that the National Archives needs a larger budget. If you need more assistance and you want that local history room to be open every day, all hours that the library is open, talk to your Rockford officials about the library budget and watch when there's a millage so that you can support your local libraries and other institutions. Um, that is one of the best ways to have an impact on your local community is to be involved and be educated.

Bridget Finn 37:25

Thank you, Jill Zawaki. Thank you again for taking the time to talk with us today. And thanks for the work that you and your team do to make these records accessible to all of us. Your government, your records begins September 23rd. If you're eager to learn more, visit us at www.rockfordpubliclibrary.org. And can't wait to see you at our workshops.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

Yes, thank you so much. We'll see you next week. See you next week.