Qualla: National Archives at College Park

National Archives at College Park: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Blacktupelo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Behind the doors of a six-story building in suburban Maryland sits the de facto headquarters of the National Archives, even though the Archivist of the United States officially still works out of the columned classical pile downtown on Constitution Avenue. The downtown building - now called Archives I, though it didn't have a number for the first sixty years of its life - had simply run out of space. By the early 1990s, the country was producing federal records faster than the National Archives could find anywhere to put them. The College Park facility opened in 1994 to take the overflow. It quickly became the operational center of the entire agency, holding the bulk of 20th-century federal records and serving as the place where most actual research now happens.

Image: Blacktupelo | CC BY-SA 4.0

National Archives at College Park: What's in the Vault

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit National Archives and Records Administration. 4/1/1985, Public domain. Most of what's at Archives II is exactly what you'd expect: cubic miles of paper records from federal agencies, organized into the largest collection of government documents in the country. Around 80 percent of those records are open to the public. The other 20 percent are classi...

Image: National Archives and Records Administration. 4/1/1985 | Public domain

National Archives at College Park: Six Floors, Six Research Rooms

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fuzheado, CC BY-SA 4.0. The building is organized vertically by what kind of record you came to look at. The first floor is registration and orientation - the badge desk and the introductory briefing for new researchers. The second floor is textual research, the largest single room and the destination f...

Image: Fuzheado | CC BY-SA 4.0

National Archives at College Park: How Records Get Here

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Department of Agriculture. Forest Service. 7/1/1905, Public domain. Federal records arrive at Archives II in two ways. Annual Move records are transferred automatically every year on a schedule - the predictable feed from agencies that generate huge volumes of routine paperwork. Direct Offer records come in on a case-by-case basis, when an agency...

Image: Department of Agriculture. Forest Service. 7/1/1905 | Public domain

National Archives at College Park: Electronic Records, Eventually

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Department of Agriculture. Forest Service. 7/1/1905, Public domain. Beginning in the early 2000s, the National Archives started building an Electronic Records Division as a mirror of the paper division. The challenges are different in kind. A box of paper records will sit on a shelf for a hundred years and still be readable. A floppy disk of Word...

Image: Department of Agriculture. Forest Service. 7/1/1905 | Public domain

National Archives at College Park: The Twin Buildings

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Information Agency. Bureau of Programs. Press and Publications Service. Publications Division. 1953-1978, Public domain. Archives I downtown still receives visitors who come to see the founding documents - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are displayed in the rotunda. Archives II receives the researchers who came to do work. Many of the older building's admi...

Image: U.S. Information Agency. Bureau of Programs. Press and Publications Service. Publications Division. 1953-1978 | Public domain