Resumo

Recently, David Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, said, “If it’s not online, it doesn’t exist”. He meant this is as a catalyst, as a call to action for archivists, because only a very, very small percentage of the collections at the National Archives, or any other archives in the United States, is online. Overwhelmingly, our collections are still available only in the medium in which they were originally created: paper, audio tape, film et cetera. Even the born digital content we collect is rarely available online in a way that patrons can readily find and use it. To improve digital access to archival collections, we will have to use new technologies, learn new skills and form new partnerships; currently, no American archives has the capacity to do this work on its own, with just its own staff and resources. But there are projects that we can study. Two are: a collaboration among states, funded by the Library of Congress, to work with legislative records: and the ongoing development of the Digital Public Library of America. Both demonstrate the importance of access to content in generating support and how new ideas could inform archival practice.