What can I take into a research room with me?
36 C.F.R. § 1254.26
in effectEffective: 2024-07-01(a) Personal belongings. You may take a hand-held wallet and coin purse for the carrying of currency, coins, credit cards, keys, driver's license, and other identification cards into research rooms, but these are subject to inspection when you enter or leave the room. The guard or research room attendant determines whether your wallet or purse is sufficiently small for purposes of this section. You may take cell phones, pagers, and similar telecommunications devices into a research room only under the circumstances cited in § 1254.46(b) and, for cell phone cameras, in § 1254.70(g).
(b) Notes and reference materials. You may take notes, references, lists of documents to be consulted, and other materials into a research room if the supervisor administering the research room or the senior staff member on duty in the research room determines that they are essential to your work requirements. Not all facilities permit you to take notes into the research room. In facilities that allow you to bring notes, staff may stamp your items to indicate that they are your property.
(c) You may bring back into the research room on subsequent visits your research notes made on notepaper and notecards we provide and electrostatic copies you make on copying machines in NARA research rooms which are marked with the statement “Reproduced at the National Archives.” You must show any notes and copies to the research room attendant for inspection when you enter the research room.
(d) Personal equipment. The research room attendant, with approval from the supervisor, archivist, or lead archives technician in charge of the room, may admit personal computers, tape recorders, scanners, cameras, and similar equipment if the equipment meets NARA's approved standards for preservation. We do not approve the use of any equipment that could potentially damage documents. If demand to use equipment exceeds the space available for equipment use, we may impose time limits. If you wish to use computers, sound recording devices, or other equipment, you must work in areas the research room attendant designates, when required.
Source: eCFRURL: https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2024-07-01/title-36.xmlFetched: 7/26/2026