National Archives and Records Service film-vault fire at Suitland, Md. : hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, Ninety-sixth Congress, first session, June 19 and 21, 1979 (1979)

74 a systemwide responsibility for, not only physical security — prevention of theft or compromise of our holdings — but who would also be the person who would be looking into safety problems. The Public Buildings Service is allocated that responsibility to a large extent, but I think it might be well to have someone on our staff who would be making an initial response to anything that any member of our staff brought to our attention that appeared not to be as it should be and who would be our main point of contact with the Public Buildings Service, monitoring activities and making sure that steps were taken promptly when it became apparent that they needed to be. It would seem to me that part of the responsibility of that person might very well be to deal with the kind of potential problems that you have raised, Mr. Kindness. That is certainly something that we ought to be thinking about. Mr. Kindness. Similarly, the other materials maintained by the National Archives — I suppose some thought has been given to what happens in the event of an unusual occurrence to some of the things at the main building, and, I suppose, in all locations where you have materials maintained for storage this same function might be performed. Dr. Rhoads. That is right. The proposed position I was referring to would be for someone who would have this responsibility generally throughout the National Archives and Records Service system. Mr. Kindness. On another topic, what authority does NARS have at the present time to accession film collections ? There was testimony the other day to the effect that it might be desirable if the Federal Government, or some part of it, were to be more aggressive about acquiring nitrate films and doing something about the preservation of those parts of our history. Would you care to comment in that area ? Dr. Rhoads. Yes. The Federal Records Act of 1950, which has been amended, of course, but which is our basic charter, authorizes us to accept materials, including audiovisual materials, from non-Federal sources if they — and I am not quoting the exact language — supplement in an important way the coverage of fimctions of the Federal Government. We believe that extensive portions of newsreels, including outtakes, do cover Federal Government activities or the implications of Federal Government actions in a way that was not available from Government sources. So, it is under that authority that we have felt free to accept newsreel material. I should also say that we have had a longstanding agreement — from 1949 — with the Library of Congress as to what kinds of nongovernmental audiovisual materials each institutions would collect. That was brought up to date in 1975. We now have a rather current formal agreement with the Library of Congress which divides the turf in what I believe to be a reasonable way. We are interested in acquiring materials that relate to governmental activities, important public events, and news. The Library of Congress is responsible primarily for those films which would deal with other kinds of matters that are not normally associated with Government. It is my understanding that the National Endowment for the Humanities is planning to begin a program under its hoped-for new