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Obtaining Copies of Documents

Our web site is an index to the holdings of the Air Force Historical Research Agency. We don't have copies of the actual documents ourselves.

To obtain copies of documents that you find in the index, email a request to the Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA) Archivist at AFHRA.NEWS@us.af.mil. Include your name, address, and telephone number. Be sure to copy-paste the detail page of the document in which you're interested into your email. (The detail page is the page you get when you click the hyperlinked number in the "Document" column at the far left of the search results page -- for example, here is a link to the detail page for document number 1053228.)

The AFHRA Archivist will advise you whether there are any fees for copying the document and whether you will need to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request or a Mandatory Declassification Review request in addition to your email. According to AFHRA, a FOIA request is typically not required to obtain an unclassified document.

AHFRA has advised us as of March 2010 that some of their holdings are now available for purchase on CD-ROM: "The cost is $30 per CD. The contents of a CD are the same as the contents of a microfilm roll. Requests for documents which require deletions may not be available on CD. Patrons should still contact AFHRA for a quote prior to sending payment." Note that not all microfilm holdings are available on CD.

Finally, please note that AFHRA will not send you classified documents! Rather, such documents will need to go through a declassification review. After such review, the declassified portions of documents can be sent to you. Declassification review can take some time (think months) and in some cases the entire document may remain classified, so plan accordingly.

For more information, please see the AFHRA web site's welcome page and FOIA page.


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