AIC 53rd Annual Meeting

Census data is treasured by almost everyone, from genealogists and academics to state and federal agencies and ordinary Americans researching family histories. To meet this demand and fulfill its mission to provide public access to federal records, every decade the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) releases the census data from 72 years prior.

Most recently, data from the 1950 census was released on April 1, 2022. Adding millions of census-related documents to the National Archives Catalog was an all-hands-on-deck event. Collaboration between units was essential to achieving this goal, with NARA staff working around the clock in shifts to meet the deadline. Immediately after the release of the 1950 census, NARA began preparing for the release of the 1960 census in 2032 with an expectation of even greater digital access. In July 2023, conservation was tasked with developing a project assessment and treatment plan for the 30,000 1960 census enumeration district maps, with the understanding that this project would encompass 10 years of work.




The magnitude of NARA’s collections means that the maps are not cataloged at the item level. Discussions with the archivists revealed that they believed the maps depicting densely populated urban areas were most damaged. This was confirmed by a preservation survey, which found that about 10% of the maps likely needed repair. We then undertook a pilot project to estimate the treatment time for each map and develop a monthly goal allowing us to treat a minimum of 3,000 maps by 2032.




Some of the tools that we have used to give this project a good start towards success are well-documented treatment guidelines, tracking numbers and hours, team check-in meetings, and quality control procedures. Close collaboration with archivists and specialists is essential to developing practical workflows that work for all departments involved.




The 1960 census enumeration district maps are inherently collaborative in nature. They were created by census takers in partnership with everyday Americans, arrived at NARA thanks to federal and state agencies working together, were processed by a team of archivists, and are now being prepared and digitized through the joint efforts of multiple units across the agency so that they can be accessed by researchers who will use their data in unique and creative ways to better our understanding of history. Our treatment approach is likewise collaborative, with conservation staff playing only a small role in the overall project. This non-hierarchical approach holds specific advantages in that it familiarizes us with specific treatment challenges and represents a methodology sympathetic to the ethos and nature of the census enumeration district maps themselves.