October has been proclaimed Georgia Archives Month by the state’s governor, Nathan Deal. It could also be the last month that researchers have reliable access to the Georgia Archives.
The archives hold the official records of Georgia’s governors, legislature, and state agencies, along with other historical material dating back to the early 18th century. Last week, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brian P. Kemp, announced “with great remorse” that the archives would be effectively closed to the public as of November 1 to meet budget cuts. Researchers would have to make an appointment to use the archives.
The archives’ supporters inside and outside the state sprang into action, ginning up the social-media machine and campaigning to have the decision reversed.
On Wednesday, at a public ceremony to mark Archives Month, Governor Deal said he would find a way to keep the archives open. But neither the governor nor Mr. Kemp has provided details so far about how that might happen. Seven of the archives’ 10 staffers have already been told that they’ll lose their jobs come November.
Governor Deal “has said he’ll find a way to keep the archives open to the public,” a spokesman told The Chronicle via e-mail. Because of the state budget process, the governor will not make formal spending proposals until January. “Whether or not the staff reductions go forward on Nov. 1 is up to the secretary of state,” he said.
Mr. Kemp, in an e-mail message, also suggested that a financial solution cannot be found till next year. “I share the governor’s goal of securing funding for access to the State Archives and look forward to working with him and the General Assembly in January,” he wrote.
‘Unheard Of’ Steps
“We’re getting such mixed signals this week,” said John C. Inscoe, a professor of history at the University of Georgia and editor of the online New Georgia Encyclopedia. “It’s unheard of that something this basic would be shut down.”
Georgia has other significant historical archives, he said, but the state archives houses official data that are found nowhere else. “It’s vital to so much of the research and writing” that students, scholars, and genealogists do, Mr. Inscoe said.
Public hours at the archives had already been cut in recent years, down to 17 hours a week. According to statistics provided by Mr. Kemp’s office, the archives served 6,354 on-site visitors in the 2011 fiscal year—about 61 visitors a day. In 2012, the archives had 5,145 visitors, or almost 48 a day. In 2009, the archives were open 43 hours a week and served 8,245 visitors.
Supporters of the archives, including the Friends of Georgia Archives & History and the Society of Georgia Archivists, haven’t wasted time since Mr. Kemp’s surprise announcement on September 13. Local historical groups and genealogical societies have helped spread the word. Elizabeth A. Dill, a librarian at Georgia Military College, created a Georgians Against Closing State Archives page on Facebook (more than 3,000 likes so far), and a petition on Change.org that’s attracted more than 14,600 signatures.
“Keep making noise!” Marie Force, president of the Georgia archivists’ society, urged the group’s members in a letter posted on the society’s blog. “The governor and your legislators have to hear from their constituents in Georgia that ‘open’ does not mean appointments only with 3 full-time staff to handle the entire state archives operations.”
Kaye Lanning Minchew, director of the Troup County Archives, has been active in the campaign to save the archives. The governor’s announcement “is a small victory,” she said. “To use the cliché, the devil’s in the details.”
Letters of Protest
National archival, library, and historical associations have been quick to throw their weight behind the protests as well. The American Library Association expressed its “deep concern and dismay” about the threatened closure. The National Coalition for History, an advocacy group, put out a call to action. On September 17, the Society of American Archivists sent Governor Deal a strong letter of protest. “Are you aware that Georgia’s was one of the earliest state archives established in the United States?” Jackie M. Dooley, the association’s president, wrote in the letter. “This is a fact of which you can be proud, and it would surely be a national embarrassment for your state to now become the only one that does not provide public access to its public records.”
Ms. Dooley said the association was “particularly appalled” that Mr. Kemp would sacrifice public access to government records in order to make the required budget cuts. She argued that limited, appointment-only access to the archives “would deny citizens predictable and ready access to public records.” She quoted Georgia’s Records Act, which requires that “all public records ‘shall be open for a personal inspection by any citizen of this state at a reasonable time and place, and those in charge of such records shall not refuse this privilege to any citizen.’”
The American Historical Association sent Governor Deal its own letter voicing “grave concern” about the situation. “The records of any government represent the heritage of its people, and can serve that role only when its citizens have access to consult those records,” the association’s executive director, James R. Grossman, wrote. “Closing the doors to the archives would represent a devastating blow not only to historians, genealogists, and others with an interest in the past, but also the state’s policy makers and leaders who need a solid understanding of the past to help shape Georgia’s future.”
The Organization of American Historians weighed in too. “Open access to government records are vital to the work of historians,” the association’s president, Albert M. Camarillo, and executive director, Katherine M. Finley, wrote to Governor Deal. Their letter asks the governor to secure funds to keep the archives open and fully staffed five days a week, and to “ensure uninterrupted service to the public.”
The OAH letter points to a couple of significant collections held by the archives, including its Civil War records and documents related to “the vital role of Georgia in the struggle for civil rights in the South,” the historians wrote. “Only by studying these key records housed in the archives will an accurate interpretation of this important time in American history be fairly and accurately understood.”
Drew A. Swanson, an environmental historian and postdoctoral fellow at Millsaps College, just published his first book, Remaking Wormsloe Plantation: The Environmental History of a Lowcountry Landscape, with the University of Georgia Press. He did some of the research for that book in the Georgia Archives, which includes “materials that simply aren’t available anywhere else.”
His current project, an environmental history of Appalachia, features a chapter on north Georgia. “I’m certainly intending to visit the archives, and I don’t know how that will work now,” he said.
The news that Georgia might curtail access to its archives took him aback. “It kind of astonishes me that we have archives here in Mississippi, with all our financial challenges, that are open to a much greater extent than Georgia is,” Mr. Swanson said.
