Originally published in Raleigh Magazine. Words in italics are my additions.

A distinct ‘ping!’ from the elevator announces each visitor’s arrival to the State Archives’ search room in downtown Raleigh. The building is a product of the sixties, a fact betrayed by the mid-century geometric patterns and quartz-flecked floors. Long work desks with sturdy document props, reference librarians, and a wall lined with card catalogues await guests, ready to help any search along its way. State archivist Sarah Koonts says that in addition to the usual genealogy investigators, this time of year there are a handful of students working towards masters degrees and PhDs (they sit with papers to one side, notebooks or computers on the other, brows furrowed).

As a student at NC State in 1992, Koonts started work at the archives. The siren call of government records drew her in, and kept her working her way up through the building (except for one brief stint in the records center, a few steps away from the archives by sidewalk or tunnel). Now, she serves as the archives’ director. With 190,000 cubic feet of documents - and an estimated 2,000 sheets of paper per cubic foot - it’s nothing to be sneezed at. Koonts oversees two parts of the archival mission: The archives themselves, and the records that are created every day just by normal government function. In the archives, manuscripts, letters, military histories, posters, photographs, and motion pictures need care and attention. With incoming records, they are sifting through for the 2-3% of documents that have long term value. In the moments when the archives staff is not engaged with researchers, there is always something that needs to be arranged, catalogued, or scanned.

“What’s really transitioned,” Koonts commented, “is we used to do a lot of business solely in person. Now we do that same amount of business, but two-thirds of it is online and remote.” Registers of deeds, Civil War pensions, most of the archive’s collection of maps, photos (via Flickr), and selections from other records are available online. Digitizing must be a selective process, Koonts explains, because indexing still requires human time and skill to sit down, skim the document, and write a quick summary. Each year, the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources picks a theme to center around, which helps the archives decide what gets digital priority. For instance, in 2020 the department will celebrate a century of women’s suffrage. For the archives, this means digitizing and uploading more work related to women causing change, the suffrage and anti-suffrage movements, and documents from Lillian Exum Clement, who won a legislature seat before she could even vote. They take some of these documents on the road in traveling exhibits; Koonts, another archivist and a van tote on-message documents to outposts around the state and preach the good news of the archives.

The archives try to give visitors access to original documents as much as possible, to hold and turn over and lift to the light. The search room does not have the library smell you would expect - the stacks do. In the back rooms the promising scent of old ink, yellowed paper, and leather fills the space, along with fluorescent light and seemingly endless rows of shelves separated by a slim aisle. Some loose books wait on a trolley to be re-shelved - Koonts props them up in an absent motion.

The archivists try to keep the records that are frequently requested close at hand. Behind a heavy vault door, the special treasures of the state archives sit in the chill of 54 degrees. When asked “Do you want to see the vault?” my answer has always been and enthusiastic “Of course!” I realize that in books, visiting vaults without hesitation is the way the plucky reporter girls get trapped by sources who have Said Too Much, but so far it has given me little trouble and the pleasure of seeing rare sights. There is a letter written by newly-elected President Washington to the governor and his counsel, the original map of Raleigh, and a 1776 letter from John Adams to North Carolinian members of the Continental Congress explaining his ideas of democracy (the letters are marked up, carefully thought over - they would eventually become the pamphlet Thoughts on Government, which influenced many of the framers of the US Constitution). And then there are two particular favorites, affectionately known as “Chuck and Bill”. Chuck is the North Carolina charter of 1663, complete with a stern portrait of Charles II. Bill is North Carolina’s copy of the bill of rights, stolen at the close of the Civil War and circulated until an FBI sting operation in 2003 led to its return to the archives. Ms. Koonts was working in a basement office when Bill made his way back to the archives, and had two hours’ notice to prepare his place and change the combination on the vault.

While some of the work of an archivist involves sweeping historical victories, it is often about paying attention to small details, hearing out a person who has brought in a snarled genealogy with a complex question.

Koonts encourages visits from all who are curious. Even if visitors have no idea of where to start, her response is,

“Great! Tell me where you’re at, and we’ll go from there. We’re equipped to deal with someone who just started genealogy to someone who’s been doing it and has a very, very complicated problem. That’s what we’re here for - all you’ve got to do is ask.” As for her favorite resource?

“At the end of the day, if you use [any document] to end your genealogy roadblock, that’s the most important document we have that day. Glad we can have it.”

To arrange a tour of the state archives, call 919-814-6840. There is no minimum or maximum group size. For more information, or to search documents, visit archives.ncdcr.gov.