Inventories
of George W. Bush's Gubernatorial Papers
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Below are files cataloging the preserved documents from George W. Bush's time as Texas Governor. The documents are held by the Texas State Archives, which provided me with these finding aids on CD-ROM. Their primary use, of course, is for researchers and journalists who want to request some of the listed documents. To do so, you'll need to invoke the Texas Public Information Act (not the federal Freedom of Information Act). Instructions for making such requests are here. Send your request for Bush documents to:
Some information on the Texas State Archives' collection of George W. Bush material can be found here. The Archives are in the process of massively upgrading the page, but I've been told that while they intend to post some of the finding aids below, they won't be posting all of them. If you uncover any interesting documents using these finding aids, please let The Memory Hole know. PS: Here's a fascinating Austin Chronicle article about the efforts of Bush and the Texas Governor to restrict access to these documents: "Closing Open Records: What George Bush and Rick Perry don't want you to know." |
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"An
Explanation of the Finding Aids to the George W. Bush Included on the CD from the Texas State Archives. file: explanation_bush_finding_aids.doc
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"Bush Box and Folder" Lists 24,459 documents in the Bush gubernatorial collection. Offices covered include "Executive," "Scheduling," "Executive, Joe Allbaugh's Office," "Executive (Senior Advisor)," "Budget," "Grants Team," "Film," "Press," "Office of the First Lady," and many others. Probably the single most important finding aid here. If you only download one, this should be it. file: bush_box_and_folder.csv
file: bush_box_and_folder.xls
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"Bush" Texas State Archives: "Seventeen offices within the Governor's Office have individual finding aids within this file. They range in size from one record to almost 6,000. The contents vary as well. The finding aids may describe individual documents or entire boxes of records. Data fields give the category and sub-category of the correspondence, a date, an author, a description, response and response date, folder and box numbers, the retention schedule, date destroyed and by whom authorized, and comments. Although the fields are constant across the seventeen databases, data entry is not. Not all fields were used by all offices; nor were they used consistently within one office. The box number and folder fields were rarely employed. The degree to which the gubernatorial records now in the custody of the State Library and Archives Commission match the finding aids is unknown at this time. Retrieving documents described in these finding aids will be slow, but the documents, if found, will be in context with other records." file: bush.zip
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"Executive Archives Inventory" Texas State Archives: "In this finding aid the first row of a set has a folder title and the following rows describe the contents. Folders are listed alphabetically by subject. The finding aid contains 2,793 rows." file: executive_archives_inventory.xls
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"Bush Correspondence" Texas State Archives: "The biggest finding aid has 489,257 entries. The data describe individual documents received from 1995 to 2000 including the correspondent's name and address, date received and replied to (if replied to), who referred to (if referred), and major issue and sub issue. The purpose of several fields is unknown. It is not known how some correspondence was selected for entry into this system and others not. (Other finding aids cover offices within the Governor's Office and seem to only partially duplicate this finding aid.) "E-mail addresses that had originally been redacted from the finding aid were restored following Texas Attorney General Open Records Decision OR2002-2314. "The requester's advantage with this finding aid is that these gubernatorial
records are filed by the unique number in the finding aid making retrieval
of the exact item a simple matter. The requester's disadvantage when using
these records is that the context of the creation and use of the records
is absent. The finding aid covers approximately 1,103 cubic feet of records." file: bush_correspondence_XLS.zip
file:
bush_correspondence_CSV.zip
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"Bush Mail Log" Texas State Archives: "This finding aid has 489,257 entries. The data in this finding aid are similar to those in the Bush Correspondence finding aid except that it lacks the major issue and sub issue fields. For about half the records, an abbreviated subject term (using only eight spaces and a three-space extension) has been entered. The lack of subject access limits the utility of this finding aid. A comparison of the Bush mail log finding aid to the Bush Correspondence finding aid was not conducted although it seems very likely that Bush mail log database is a subset of Bush Correspondence. E-mail addresses that had originally been redacted from the finding aid were restored following Texas Attorney General Open Records Decision OR2002-2314." file:
bush_mail_log_CSV.zip
file: bush_mail_log_XLS.zip
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"Bush Gifts" Texas State Archives: "The finding aid consists of 5,400 records. It describes the gift to the governor; whether it was a personal gift, a gift to the state, or accepted to be donated elsewhere; from whom received; and value. E-mail addresses that had originally been redacted from the finding aid were restored following Texas Attorney General Open Records Decision OR2002-2314." file: bush_gifts.csv
file: bush_gifts.xls
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Other Finding Aides Texas State Archives: "The finding aids consist of general descriptions of records (by series) in each of these offices within the Governor's Office, the quantity of the records, and their disposition (stay, send to Presidential Library, destroy). Inventories exist for these offices: Administration file: bush_misc_finding_aids.zip
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Thanks
to Brett Milner for converting many of these files to more usable formats.
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| posted 25 Mar 2004 | copyright 2002-4 Russ Kick |