[Cross posted on LegalResearchPlus [1]]

About one month ago, I posted [2] an item about the difficulty of getting documents about NARA from NARA -- the entry was based on an article written by Anthony Clark (Why Is It So Hard to Get Documents from the National Archives About the National Archives? [3], History News Network, July 21, 2008).

Here is an update to this very interesting story. On the Archivists' Forum, there is a recent entry [4] from Anthony Clark detailing the latest ups and (mostly) downs of this saga.

Clark writes [5]:

"Some readers may know that I have had great difficulty accessing NARA's own records for my research into presidential libraries and NL, or NARA's Office of Presidential Libraries (see http://hnn.us/articles/52350.html [6]) for more information). What you might not know is that in July NARA offered me a deal" - if I dropped all of my pending FOIA requests for NL's records, they would commit to systematically process all of NL's records - some 230 boxes - at a rate of nine boxes per month, until all boxes have been processed and made available. Just a few weeks later, not only did NARA "take back" part of that offer (while claiming it was never made), they have now reneged on it completely. I was so shocked by what NARA did today that I felt I had to make the list aware of what they had done. [Full details available on the Forum page [7].]"

As I hear more about this NARA-tive, I'll be sure to pass it along.