On 12 February 2003, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released the "Access to Archival Databases" (AAD) System to the public. AAD provides researchers with online access to over 50 million historical electronic records organized in over 350 databases that were created by some 20 Federal agencies. The long-term plan calls for the program to be expanded to over 500 databases.

The AAD System is the first publicly accessible application developed under the auspices of the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) Program. The ERA program seeks to address the challenges of preserving and increasing the variety and volume of government records that have been created and stored in electronic form.

AAD enables researchers to search, retrieve, print out, and download records. Researchers will need to determine in advance the series and file units of interest before initiating their research. To access the System, tap into: http://www.archives.gov/aad/.

Excerpted from NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE (Vol. 9, #8; 21 February 2003) by Bruce Craig rbcraig@historycoalition.org, National Coalition for History (NCH)