Boston Public Library aims to increase access to a vast historic archive using AI; NPR, August 11, 2025

Chloe Veltman, NPR ; Boston Public Library aims to increase access to a vast historic archive using AI

"Boston Public Library, one of the oldest and largest public library systems in the country, is launching a project this summer with OpenAI and Harvard Law School to make its trove of historically significant government documents more accessible to the public.

The documents date back to the early 1800s and include oral histories, congressional reports and surveys of different industries and communities...

Currently, members of the public who want to access these documents must show up in person. The project will enhance the metadata of each document and will enable users to search and cross-reference entire texts from anywhere in the world. 

Chapel said Boston Public Library plans to digitize 5,000 documents by the end of the year, and if all goes well, grow the project from there...

Harvard University said it could help. Researchers at the Harvard Law School Library's Institutional Data Initiative are working with libraries, museums and archives on a number of fronts, including training new AI models to help libraries enhance the searchability of their collections. 

AI companies help fund these efforts, and in return get to train their large language models on high-quality materials that are out of copyright and therefore less likely to lead to lawsuits. (Microsoft and OpenAI are among the many AI players targeted by recent copyright infringement lawsuits, in which plaintiffs such as authors claim the companies stole their works without permission.)"

Building presidential library for John Adams and son in Quincy, Massachusetts is of "national importance," CEO says; CBS News, July 31, 2025

 Paula Ebben, 

Paula Ebben, Mike Toole, CBS News; Building presidential library for John Adams and son in Quincy, Massachusetts is of "national importance," CEO says

"A presidential library for John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams is a step closer to becoming a reality in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Adams was the nation's second president, and his son was the sixth, but there's no presidential library for either of them."

Stacks of Cash; The New Yorker, August 1, 2025

Jon Allsop; The New Yorker; Stacks of Cash

"The idea of the Presidential library dates to the late nineteen-thirties, when Roosevelt decided to donate his papers to the federal government and move them to a fireproof building near his family home. According to Anthony Clark, a former congressional staffer who has written a book about Presidential libraries, Roosevelt made room to display memorabilia to the public “almost as an afterthought.” Most Presidential libraries would come to house both the paper trail of a Presidency, for researchers to consult, and also a commemorative museum, which is the bit that most tourists actually visit. Over time, these museums grew more ambitious, and sometimes proved to be of questionable historical value. Richard Nixon’s museum initially presented Watergate as a coup, and accused Woodward and Bernstein of bribery.

Roosevelt was under no legal obligation to make his papers publicly available—but since 1978, thanks to Nixon and Watergate, Presidential records have been considered federal property, and are supposed to be handed over to the National Archives and Records Administration. There has never been a governmental requirement to open an associated museum, but typically these have also been managed by nara. (Nixon’s was unusual in that it was run privately for many years; in 2007, nara took it over and ripped out and replaced the Watergate exhibit.) Before the government gets involved on the museum side, however, the structures must be planned and built using outside funds, making them, in practice, fuzzy mixes of the public and the private. When Presidential libraries are donated to the government, they must also hand over endowments to help defray future maintenance costs.

Barack Obama broke the mold: his Presidential museum, in Chicago, which somehow is still not open, is an entirely private endeavor, run by a foundation; his official records are being digitized and will continue to be supervised by nara. After this effective divorce of library and museum functions was announced, Clark expressed hope about the arrangement. “What were intended to be serious research centers have grown into flashy, partisan temples touting huckster history,” he wrote, in Politico. “Even though they are taxpayer-funded and controlled by a federal agency, the private foundations established by former presidents to build the libraries retain outsize influence.” The Obama model would at least keep the government out of the business of hagiography. Not everyone was supportive, however. Timothy Naftali, who was responsible for overhauling the Nixon facility as its first federal director and who is now a historian at Columbia, has argued that the private nature of Obama’s center is an impediment to nonpartisan public history. “It opens the door,” he said, “to a truly terrible Trump library.”"

Facing lawsuit, USDA says it will restore climate-change-related webpages; The Associated Press via Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, May 14, 2025

Melina Walling, The Associated Press via Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University; Facing lawsuit, USDA says it will restore climate-change-related webpages

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture has agreed to restore climate-change-related webpages to its websites after it was sued over the deletions in February.

The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group, argued that the deletions violated rules around citizens’ access to government information.

The USDA’s reversal comes ahead of a scheduled May 21 hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction against the agency’s actions in federal court in New York.

The department had removed resources on its websites related to climate-smart farming, conservation practices, rural clean-energy projects and access to federal loans related to those areas after President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration."

Have You Seen Changes to Federal Buildings? Send Us Photos.; The New York Times, February 5, 2025

 Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz, The New York Times; Have You Seen Changes to Federal Buildings? Send Us Photos.

"We’re looking to document changes in the physical appearances of federal buildings during the transition to the Trump administration.

If you work in a federal building and have seen differences in your physical environment — new wall décor, artwork coming down or being put up, photos covered up or anything else — we’d like to see photographs of the new space. If you have photos of how it looked before, you are also encouraged to enclose those.

The form below will allow you to submit photos of federal buildings and provide information about where and when the photos were taken. You can also reach us securely at nytimes.com/tips.

We may publish any photograph you share in The New York Times. We will never publish your name without permission, but it would help to provide at least one method of contacting you in case we need to reach out about your submission."

Trump’s anti-DEI order yanks air force videos of Tuskegee Airmen and female pilots; Reuters via The Guardian, January 25, 2025

Reuters via The Guardian ; Trump’s anti-DEI order yanks air force videos of Tuskegee Airmen and female pilots

[Kip Currier: As the proud son of a U.S. Air Force veteran captain, I respectfully call on the U.S. Air Force to again make available to its instructors and students these important parts of its history, as a force for making our country and the world safer and more representative of the promise of America.]

[Excerpt]

"Donald Trump’s order halting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives has led the US air force to suspend course instruction on a documentary about the first Black airmen in the US military, known as the Tuskegee Airmen, a US official said on Saturday.

The famed Black aviators included 450 pilots who fought overseas in segregated units during the second world war. Their success in combat helped pave the way for Harry Truman’s decision to desegregate the armed forces in 1948.

Another video about civilian female pilots trained by the US military during the second world war, known as Women Airforce Service Pilots, or Wasps, was also pulled, the official said.

The air force did not directly comment on the decision, which was confirmed by an official who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity."

‘Everyone was freaking out’: Navalny novichok film made in secret premieres at Sundance; The Guardian, January 26, 2022

Shaun Walker, The Guardian; ‘Everyone was freaking out’: Navalny novichok film made in secret premieres at Sundance 

Director Daniel Roher tells of panic after team  recorded Alexei Navalny pranking one of his Russian poisoners into confessing

"At the end of the film, Navalny answers a request from the director to record a message for the eventuality that he were killed on his return. “I’ve got something very obvious to tell you: don’t give up, you’re not allowed. If they decided to kill me, it means we are incredibly strong, and we need to use this power,” he said."