NGA launches archive catalog with limited online access

The National Gallery of Art has launched an online catalog of its institutional archives — but while the site promises access to more than 86,000 historical resources, materials remain undigitized and unavailable to view online.

The launch highlights a tension between modern archival practices and public expectations. What the NGA launched is formally known as a “finding aid,” a standard archival tool that lists materials for physical research. They are designed to be searchable indexes that describe what materials exist and are not intended, by definition, to be full digital repositories of viewable content.

However, the museum's own press release has created an accessibility paradox with public expectation for instant access by promising to “share these materials with audiences... who may never be able to visit us in Washington,” a claim that the current catalog's physical access requirement directly contradicts.

“On this site you can search or browse collection descriptions of our institutional records and special collections documenting people and topics related to the museum,” the website for the new archive reads.

Each result includes information about a file’s creator, general subject matter, and date range, along with instructions on where the physical material is stored in the museum’s archives—meaning users outside the capital would still have to travel to Washington to even review the material.

A review of the catalog shows that the documents themselves are not digitized, and even records originally created in digital formats are not yet accessible through the platform.

“Objects linked in the Digital Materials tab are available upon request,” the website notes, adding that digital access will be incorporated “in the future.”

Archival experts note that processing born-digital records for public release is often more labor-intensive than scanning physical documents, requiring specialized human work for metadata tagging and format migration. However, by requiring manual requests for such items at the time of launch, the NGA has created an instant bottleneck for these modern files that could have been prioritized for automated release.

The archive also appears to offer limited visibility into the gallery’s modern governance or internal operations. Searching for past director Earl Powell, who headed the gallery for 26 years before retiring in March 2019, returns just 167 results—mostly oral history interviews and announcements for past press breakfasts.

The National Gallery of Art is an independent federal agency and is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, leaving researchers reliant on the museum’s archives department to request internal records. The new catalog centralizes these descriptions, but the contents available online remain largely historical.

Because the gallery is exempt from FOIA, the public cannot force the release of internal documents. This leaves this new, voluntary archive as perhaps the sole, albeit restricted, window into the museum's operations.

Still, the database may prove useful for scholars, journalists, and members of the public seeking information on early donors, curatorial projects, building expansions, or past exhibitions. The museum highlighted archival holdings related to the 1978 opening of the East Building among the notable items now searchable through the platform.

In a news release, the National Gallery of Art said that the online archive allows users to explore “more than 86,000 resources documenting the National Gallery’s history and activities since its founding in 1937.”

“The heightened public availability of the National Gallery’s archival resources furthers our work to increase access to art and inspire creativity,” said Michele Willens, the National Gallery’s chief of archives.

“Our archives serve as our institutional memory and allow us to understand the history and evolution of our institution. As the nation’s art museum, we are proud to now share these materials with audiences around the country, including those who may never be able to visit us in Washington.”

Clarification published 8:30 a.m. December 4, 2025: A previous version of this article's analysis regarding the National Gallery of Art's new online catalog has been clarified to address the distinction between an archival finding aid and a digital repository. The catalog launched by the NGA is, in archival terms, a finding aid, a standard professional tool analogous to a library index that describes what materials exist for researchers. It is not, by definition, intended to be a digital repository of full, viewable content. And, the process of making born-digital files such as emails or documents publicly accessible is highly complex, often requiring significant manual labor. It is not an instantly automated process.

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