This year's theme is "Celebrate the Places that Preserve our Memories Forever." The DC Caucus of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) has organized a local Archives Week Planning Committee, led by Susan McElrath of the National Park Service, to coordinate the various activities planned by area repositories to celebrate all things archival.

The central event for Archives Week, is the Archives Fair to be held on Thursday, October 14, at the Sumner School Museum in Washington, D.C. The Fair will include a number of presentations throughout the day including topics on scrapbooks, political cartoons, a preservation demonstration, and others. An exhibit hall will be prepared for area repositories to display copies of their finding aids, conduct demonstrations, and talk up their archives.

One of the exhibitors will be the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Although NARA was the site of the first D.C. Archives Week Fair in 1997, it will be the first time NARA will have an exhibit at the event. Katherine Coram (NWCD) will bring the NARA exhibit display, examples of our finding aids for viewing, and literature to hand out. Joining Ms. Coram at the exhibit will be Debra Wall (NHP) who will be conducting NAIL Demonstrations throughout the day.

The Planning Committee feels this year will be an exciting Archives Week Fair--complete with a scavenger hunt. So, if you have some time, come to the Sumner School Museum at the corners of 17th and M Streets, NW, on October 14th, and become acquainted with some of our sister repositories in the area.

Archives Week Events at the National Archives

The Archives Fair is the central event for Archives Week, but is by no means the only event. Many of the Washington, D.C., area archives are also sponsoring events at their repositories to invite the public to expand their knowledge on what archives are about.

The Assembly has organized two events for Archives Week. In addition to the program previously announced by Jim Cassedy, Jennie Guilbaud (NWML) invited a spokesman from the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program (NDLP) to discuss the initiative for this ambitious project to make digital reproductions of primary source materials available on the Internet. All NARA employees and the public are invited to welcome Mr. Thomas Bramel of the Library of Congress discuss the NDLP and give a demonstration in the National Archives Theater downtown (A1) at 10:00am to 11:15am. Among the subjects to be discussed by Mr. Bramel and his assistants are Hispano Music @ Culture from the Northern Rio Grande, California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties, and Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip.

All are invited, so attend and bring a friend or two.