Fiscal Year 1997 may not have contained the unique excitement of last year's 150th Anniversary celebration, but it was just as busy. Focusing on internal needs, the Archives Division took on major reviews of policies and procedures. "Policy" was also the watchword for the National Collections Program, which began a major review of Smithsonian Directive 600: Collections Management Policy. And finally, the newly created Electronic Records Program marked its arrival with the issuance of Institution-wide guidance on treating e-mail records as records.

Countering this trend toward procedural activities, however, the Institutional History Division maintained a decidedly celebratory mood. Not only did IHD participate in a number of 150th Anniversary events scheduled in the last quarter of calendar 1996, but it also initiated in 1997 a year-long commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Henry, the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Seminars, articles, exhibitions, medals, and birthday cake were all featured in the course of a highly educational as well as entertaining series of events.

Space, however, dominated the archival landscape. Our critical need for additional storage space was met late in the fiscal year when the Institution signed a contract with National Underground Storage in Boyers, PA, for a purpose-built facility, allowing the Archives to lift a six-month moratorium on records transfers from SI offices. OSIA took the lead in arranging for this facility, but it is very much a Smithsonian-wide service. By year's end eight different repositories were NUS tenants. I am particularly pleased that my colleagues have joined in a shared solution to our common problem and wish to acknowledge the support and cooperation of the National Anthropological Archives, the Air and Space Archives, NMAH Archives Center, the Archives of American Art, Folklife Archives, the Hirshhorn Library, and the Freer-Sackler Archives.

While some of us were reaching out to our Smithsonian colleagues, others were reaching out to the world. Fiscal Year 1997 marks the entrance of multiple OSIA units onto the World Wide Web. A new Joseph Henry Papers Project homepage now links to a greatly expanded Institutional History Division homepage. These both link to an extensive Archives Division homepage. The digital tourist can now review numerous finding aids for our collections, take a virtual tour of the Smithsonian in the nineteenth century, read about Joseph Henry's role in creating the US Weather Service, or simply find out our hours of operation.

So in a year that might have been a recuperation period after the frantic pace of the Sesquicentennial, we have accomplished much. I am proud of the many accomplishments of the staff of the Office of Smithsonian Institution Archives whose labor, intelligence, tenacity, and spirit I salute.