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The National Archives and Records Administration posted its 2025-2027 Open Government Plan and asked the public to send suggestions by July 31, 2024 as it prepared the agency’s sixth open government roadmap. The plan puts public participation at the center of an agency that serves as the federal government’s record keeper.

The archive’s open-government effort is not a one-off exercise. Since 2010, the agency has operated under the Open Government Directive, which directs agencies to build plans around transparency, participation and collaboration. The 2025-2027 plan continues that framework and lays out 10 commitments tied to how the agency manages records, shares information and opens its work to public scrutiny.

The National Archives released the final version of the plan on Sept. 27, 2024. That document says the agency’s open-government work is intended to reflect the principles that drive innovation, improve efficiency and strengthen trust, while keeping government programs aligned with public needs. Those principles, long embedded in the agency’s open-government program, now sit alongside broader efforts to explain how the archives handles its holdings and services.

The agency’s push for feedback matters because the National Archives is more than a repository of historical documents. It holds federal records, manages access to government materials and shapes how citizens, researchers and journalists can examine the documentary record of public life. By asking for suggestions before finalizing the 2025-2027 plan, the agency put civic input directly into a process that affects transparency at the federal level.

The result is a plan that combines institutional procedure with public engagement: a formal federal document, a public comment period and a set of commitments meant to guide the archives through 2027. For an agency whose mission depends on access, the structure of the plan is as important as its contents.