{"id":520,"date":"2011-02-07T13:44:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T13:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/2011\/02\/07\/consider-the-salmon-and-also-the-cro\/"},"modified":"2018-07-18T21:29:48","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T21:29:48","slug":"consider-the-salmon-and-also-the-cro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/2011\/02\/07\/consider-the-salmon-and-also-the-cro\/","title":{"rendered":"Consider the Salmon, and also the CRO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Among the items in President Obama\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2011\/01\/25\/remarks-president-state-union-address\">State of the Union Address<\/a> was a promise to reorganize the U.S. government.<\/p>\n<p>The President citied his \u201cfavorite example\u201d of odd organization to laughter from members of Congress. \u201cThe Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they\u2019re in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they\u2019re in saltwater.\u201d and promised that \u201cIn the coming months, my administration will develop a proposal to merge, consolidate, and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archives.gov\/about\/archivist\/archivist-biography-ferriero.html\">National Archivist David Ferriero<\/a> got a head start on the process last fall and reported on NARA\u2019s effort in his blog <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.archives.gov\/aotus\/?p=2322\">\u201cCollector in Chief\u201d<\/a> last Thursday. Among the recommendations is the new position of Chief Records Officer (CRO) to \u201clead records management throughout the Federal government with an emphasis on electronic records.\u201d Ferriero, a career librarian, was the President\u2019s first library related nomination. It seems likely that this President will have the opportunity to nominate a new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.loc.gov\/about\/librarianoffice\/about.html\">Librarian of Congress<\/a> as well. Could there be a broader reorganization ahead?<\/p>\n<p>In Canada, a 2004 reorganization created a single institution, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.collectionscanada.gc.ca\/about-us\/index-e.html\">Library &amp; Archives Canada<\/a>. Some, including Ferriero\u2019s predecessor, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archives.gov\/about\/info\/archivist-biography.html\">Allen Weinstein<\/a>, have suggested consideration of the Canadian model but that would be more problematic here.<\/p>\n<p>In Canada, libraries and archives, as well as museums and cultural institutions were part of the same government portfolio (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pch.gc.ca\/eng\/1266433674232\/1266389969960\">the Heritage Ministry<\/a>), while in the U.S., they are not even in the same branch of government. Folding the archives into the library would mean giving up considerable control by the executive branch over its records, something no previous President has considered. Yet with a presidential promise to \u201cdo big things,\u201d perhaps anything is possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Among the items in President Obama\u2019s State of the Union Address was a promise to reorganize the U.S. government. The President citied his \u201cfavorite example\u201d of odd organization to laughter from members of Congress. \u201cThe Interior Department is in charge <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/2011\/02\/07\/consider-the-salmon-and-also-the-cro\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Consider the Salmon, and also the CRO<\/span><span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,518,464,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1382,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions\/1382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}