Update: The White House has announced it has sent Ferriero's nomination to the Senate for confirmation.
President Obama reportedly plans to appoint David S. Ferriero to the position of U.S. Archivist, a job that entails deploying a massive technologically-agnostic system to preserve and publish the historical record of the United States, according to the nonprofit National Coalition for History.
The post has been vacant since December, when former Archivist Allen Weinstein, who has Parkinson's disease, resigned, citing health reasons.
Ferriero brings with him some 30 years as an employee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries and was its acting co-director of libraries before departing in 1996 to head Duke University's library.
He currently serves as director and CEO of the research libraries at the New York Public Library. In 2004, the library system helped pioneer the so-called "Google Print" Library Project, a controversial program that scans library print collections to show Google users actual text containing their search terms in context.
As the new chief of the National Archives and Records Administration, Ferriero would face the challenge of overseeing construction of the delayed Electronic Records Archive. The digital archive must be able to save federal and presidential records, regardless of their format, and make them available on whatever type of hardware and software people might be using in the future.
"He's an excellent choice," said Prudence S. Adler, the associate executive director of the Association of Research Libraries. "He has a long history of understanding technology and technology developments. . . . With this administration, coming from a library community, that has very strong interest in access to information issues. . . . He's just going to be excellent."
The White House did not return requests for confirmation.
Update: Later on Tuesday, the White House announced it has sent Ferriero's nomination to the Senate for confirmation.
COMMENTS
This is one of the key federal jobs helping to preserve our Constitution (literally) and democracy (republic)!
We do need to know US history and archiving is only way to make that history as honest as possible. Better supervision of the Presidential libraries is necessary among other tasks for the archives (NARA)! This organization is always underfunded and understaffed given its importance. With bytes and bits replacing hard copy the job of vital records retention and archiving is even more difficult than in the past. Right now if nothing changes the past of the government of the US whether intentionally or not will be a secret because more and more agencies and departments are developing an unrecorded oral history (often distorted) and also not doing a good job of preserving computer records. Good luck to the new incumbent of this very very difficult and technically complex post.
William R. Cumming 07/29/09 06:33 am ET