Professor Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States, and Dr. Mark Myers, Director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), recently signed an agreement creating a cooperative framework for how the two Federal agencies will work together. This agreement will ensure the preservation and access of the earth imagery and geospatial data resources currently archived by the USGS at its Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

The agreement establishes a joint commitment to enhance the preservation and access capabilities of both NARA and the USGS. The two agencies will work together to ensure that NARA has legal custody and ultimate responsibility for the preservation of the archived EROS holdings and that USGS will meet the stringent preservation and access standards of NARA. The records will remain at the EROS Center under the day-to-day control of USGS, which has already created advanced information management system that enables public electronic access to historical earth observation data.