How are you celebrating Sunshine Week?
This week is “Sunshine Week,” a weeklong celebration of government openness! If you’re scratching your head thinking about how you can celebrate, we’ve got a couple of great suggestions:
- Participate in the Open Government Idea Forum to let the National Archives know what we should do better. We need your votes, comments, and ideas!
- Check out what Open Government means at the National Archives
- Read the Archivist, David Ferriero’s blog post on Sunshine Week
- Take a moment today to search for records in the National Archives Catalog
Happy Sunshine Week!
I like to think that we celebrate Sunshine Week every day at the National Archives. We have a unique role, which we describe as “preserving the past to protect the future.” The beautiful sculptures designed by Robert I. Aitken and chiseled by the Piccarelli Brothers of the Bronx at the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance echo this. “The Past” is represented by an ancient bearded man with a scroll and “The Future is a young women with a book. She sits atop a pedestal inscribed with “The Past is Prologue.” That is the spirit which embodies the function we serve.
It also embodies the Freedom of Information Act which we celebrate this week. FOIA was passed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on the Fourth of July in 1966. Since its passage it has been used by scores of people to learn more about how our government works. In 2010 alone, the government received more than 600,000 requests for records under the FOIA. We are proud to have the original text of the FOIA as it was signed into law in 1966. And we are especially proud to have it on display in the East Rotunda of the National Archives building on Pennsylvania Avenue during Sunshine Week. Read more on the AOTUS blog.
