Visiting the National Archives

[This text from National Archives.]



VISITING THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES-SOUTHWEST REGION

1 . You must show your drivers license before entering the Federal Center in which our facility is located. Free parking is available in front of our building. Attachment 1 is a map showing our location in Fort Worth and hours of operation. Attachment 2 is a list of motels located near the regional archives and Attachment 3 gives some of the ground transportation options from D/FW Airport.

2. Children under the age of 14 will be admitted to National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) facilities only if they are accompanied by an adult who will supervise them AT ALL TIMES while on NARA property-36 CFR 1254.1(d). The director of a NARA facility may authorize a lower age limit for admission of unaccompanied children to meet special circumstances (e.g., students who have been given permission to conduct research without adult supervision). Disruptive patrons will be asked to leave. Please do not bring pets.

3. We, unfortunately, no longer have a public pay telephone. If you bring a cell phone or pager, please be considerate of others and set them to inaudible settings. Please return you phone calls outside of the research rooms.

4. Attachment 4 shows the locations of several nearby eating establishments. If you bring your lunch there are picnic tables near the parking lot.

5. When you enter the research room, please sign in at the front desk. Please ask for assistance from one of our volunteers or staff members if you have not visited us recently. The National Archives-Southwest Region receives an average of 1100 monthly visitors and the research rooms can quickly fill. Summer and Christmas vacation times are the worst.

6. Our fee schedule for microfilm-to-paper and paper-to-paper copies can be found in Attachment 5. All of our copier machines for standard-size copies are self-service, coin-operated machines. Our staff must make copies of pages from bound volumes and oversize maps (larger than 11"x 17").

Microfilm Research Room

1 . We operate the room on a self-service basis. After signing into our research room, obtain a numbered wooden block that corresponds to the number assigned to the microfilm reader. The block should be placed in the cabinets when you pull a roll of microfilm. This will allow you to easily refile your film. Please use one roll of film at a time. This prevents film from being placed in the wrong box and then refiled.

2. If all of the microfilm viewers are in use when you arrive in the morning, you will also be asked to sign up on a waiting list for the next available microfilm viewer. Vacant viewers will be assigned to the persons listed on the sign-up list on a first signing basis. If none of the viewers become avaitable in the morning, the research room staff will reassign the microfilm viewers at NOON. Based on arrival times, persons who have arrived before noon will be asked to relinquish the microfilm viewers to those on the waiting list. Anyone arriving after noon will NOT be placed on the waiting list but will take the chance that a viewer becomes available. Researchers pull and refile their film and may use whatever reader is available.

3. The National Archives census microfilm may be borrowed from the National Archives Census Microfilm Rental Program, P.O. Box 30, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701-0030.

Original Textual (non-microfilmed) Records

1. The National Archives-Southwest Region currently stores over 83,000 cubic feet of original paper records from federal agencies located in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. [They do not have state and county records such as birth, death, and marriage records!] This volume amounts to approximately 195,000,000 pages of records. The Guide to the National Archives-Southwest Region can be found at  http://www.archives.gov/facilities/tx/fort_worth/holdings.html.

2. Records in the National Archives are maintained by record group, a number assigned to a functional subdivision of a federal agency. A researcher should consult Guide to the National Archives of the United States (Washington, DC: National Archives, 1974) and Microfilm Resources for Research; A Comprehensive Catalog (Washington, DC: National Archives) for information about the holdings of the National Archives. Many of the National Archives guides are available on our home page at http://www.archives.gov.

3. The National Archives-Southwest Region can provide a researcher with detailed finding aids if the researcher's request is specific and we will indicate whether the records have been microfilmed. If the records have not been microfilmed we will make the records available to researchers in our textual research room. A researcher using original records prior to 8:00 a.m. (Monday-Friday or anytime on Saturday needs to make an appointment prior to their visit by calling or writing us no later than the Thursday afternoon. We will not pull records between 12 (noon) and 1 p.m. It is recommend that researchers contact us to verify that we have the records. Attachment 1 lists our address, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail address.