John Martinez

John Martinez

Most people think of the National Archives as a place where government records are stored or as the place where the Charters of Freedom are displayed (and we're proud to do both!)–but the National Archives does much more.

My favorite part of working at the National Archives is that I get to see the wide range of people, skills, and knowledge that make the National Archives work, as well as the services and responsibilities that we undertake in many areas – records management, education programs, Presidential Libraries, regional archives, online access to records and services, social media, and electronic records preservation, to name a few.

My duties on the Lifecycle Policy Staff include working on the development and maintenance of the requirements for descriptive elements and authority files for our National Archives Catalog, and on data standards for other records lifecycle systems.

Much of my work lately has been related to our new archival description service and the Online Public Access prototype (http://www.archives.gov/research/search/). Working on these projects is very exciting and has given me the opportunity to collaborate with staff from almost all of the National Archives units to document work processes and system and data flows across the records lifecycle .

My work allows me to appreciate the many parts of the National Archives system and the variety of work that our staff does for the Federal government and the public. The common trait that the different National Archives staff members all have is their dedication to their work and to carry out our mission–to safeguard and preserve the records of our government and to ensure that the people can access, use, and learn from our holdings.