Category Archives: JFK database

The JFK database, sometimes titled the Assassination Collection Reference System (ACRS) is NARA’s on-line database of finding aids for the JFK ARC. It is currently off-line, but there are other resources that provide same or similar information. See especially notes in the NARA 21 category

New version of ACRS posted at NARA

It had been a while since I visited the JFK ARC pages at NARA, so I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see that a new version of the Assassination Collection Reference System (ACRS) database has been posted in the form of six excel files, apparently added in mid-June 2021.…

Just another list: NARA 20

As noted earlier, the ACRS, NARA’s on-line database of metadata for documents in the JFK Assassination Records Collection, has been down for maintenance since the end of September 2020.

In its place is a 27M excel file which NARA describes as “listing every item in the [ACRS] database to facilitate researcher access to the information in the system” (see here).…

ACRS is down

NARA’s database of finding aids for the JFK ARC is off-line. The announcement says “The JFK Assassination Collection Reference System is currently down for maintenance. During this outage, we are providing a spreadsheet listing every item in the database to facilitate researcher access to the information in the system.”

Unfortunately, the humongo spreadsheet provided lists only about half the records in the collection.…

Filling the gaps in the ACRS: Three sets of FBI records

The Assassination Collection Reference System (ACRS) is NARA’s online database of finding aids for the JFKARC. This post discusses three sets of FBI records in the ARC which are not listed in the ACRS. Using the Mary Farrell Foundation’s online collection, ARC documents posted online at NARA, and ARRB record notices published in the Federal Register, I have put together an excel file of the missing data which is available here.…

Gaps in the ACRS: A note from NARA

[First posted on March 13, 2019, at rgr-cyt.org.]

I have done a couple of posts about the agencies whose records are missing from the Assassination Collection Reference System (ACRS), the on-line database of finding-aids for the JfK Assassination Records Collection at NARA.1 I emailed NARA about the problem a while ago and have recently heard back from them.…

A note on ACRS “audit history”

[First posted on July 5, 2018, at rgr-cyt.org.]

In my previous post I noted that a field in the metadata form (RIF) had been changed at some point in the early 2000s for a number of records in the JFK Assassination Records Collection (ARC). This change made it a very difficult task to identify a number of records in the Mary Ferrell collection of ARC records, a pity if you are trying to squeeze the maximum use out of the great MF collection.…

“Missing” RIFs at NARA

[First posted on April 28, 2018, at rgr-cyt.org.]

It was difficult to come up with a snappy title for this post. Scare quotes around the word missing are a compromise. Otherwise it was something like “RIF forms that were completed but not included in NARA’s on-line database of ARC finding aids.”…