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DOE OSTI2021

The Vault National Security Then & Now (2021 Annual)

Looking back, I can say with certainty that we rose to the challenge. Like other entities all around the globe, the National Security Research Center was tested by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a young organization (we celebrated our second anniversary in June 2021) and one that is critical to Los Alamos National Laboratory’s national security charge, we faced the difficult task of continuing our mission-essential work while keeping our staff safe. The NSRC is one of the largest libraries in the United States, and it houses the country’s most-comprehensive collections of nuclear weapons-related national security material. The NSRC contains millions of documents, films, photos, and other materials on the development, testing, and production of nuclear weapons. These are accessed on a daily basis by scientists, engineers, and researchers at Los Alamos and other National Nuclear Security Administration’s labs and sites, as well as partners in the Department of Defense. It was not an option for us to close our doors - our nation’s security depended on us not to. Not only did we continue operating under new safety protocols, we successfully accomplished many pre-pandemic goals. Thanks to the NSRC’s dedicated staff, our accomplishments during our second year are too numerous to list, though two in particular come to mind.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2022

Project Y Badge Photo Collection [Slides]

The NSRC has several hundred badge photos of staff who worked at Los Alamos during the wartime Manhattan Project. The collection held by the NSRC represents an estimated 30% of the total badge photos taken at the secret wartime lab in Los Alamos, called Project Y. It is believed the majority of the badge photos of Project Y employees were destroyed or lost decades ago. The badge photos in the NSRC collections include famous staff, such as Oppenheimer, Groves, and many Nobel laureates who worked at Los Alamos. The existing photos have deteriorated significantly over the decades due to normal aging and previous poor handling procedures. Many photos had tears and non-archival tape applied.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Attend debut of new film on the Lab’s first director

The NSRC’s much-anticipated documentary, Oppenheimer: Science, Mission, Legacy, will premiere for Lab staff later this summer at the NSSB auditorium, and then be made available online. Speakers at the premiere will include film creator and primary producer Dave Tietmeyer (Multimedia Services, CEA-MP), Senior Historian Alan Carr (WRS-NSCMS), and NSRC Director Brye Steeves (WRS-DO). The film was entirely produced by the NSRC and Laboratory staff and will commemorate former director J. Robert Oppenheimer and his endeavors. Much of the material and several scenes featured in the film are based on collections from the Manhattan Project era and interviews with today’s Lab staff and Oppenheimer experts.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Beyond the Manhattan Project: Books and documentaries that showcase Lab history after World War II

They are at it again, on this occasion just in time for National Library Week. Last year, staff members from the National Security Research Center (NSRC, the Laboratory’s classified library) recommended their favorite books and movies about Los Alamos National Laboratory during the Manhattan Project. This time out, NSRC Director Riz Ali and Senior Historian Alan Carr, joined by Historian Nicholas Lewis, tackle a greater challenge, recommending their favorite books, publications and documentaries that cover the Laboratory’s history after World War II.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Classified Library Completes Large Digitization Project of Patent Collection

Many of us regularly enjoy the online resources provided by the National Security Research Center (NSRC), which is the Lab’s classified library. However, you may not be aware of all the work that goes on behind the scenes to digitize articles, reports, photographs, and correspondence. This process not only preserves documents, many of which date back to the Manhattan Project era, but also ensures they are searchable and accessible for today’s national security work. You also may not be aware that a vast majority of the Laboratory’s information holdings have not yet been digitized. And by vast majority, I mean perhaps 90% of the millions of holdings in the NSRC is only available in hard copy.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Classified library celebrates two-year anniversary print your own commemorative history posters

Today is the National Security Research Center’s second anniversary. These two years, though, have been eight decades in the making, said NSRC Director Riz Ali. “We opened our doors in 2019, but the Center’s beginnings date back to World War II when J. Robert Oppenheimer created the Lab in Los Alamos to develop the first-ever nuclear weapons,” Ali said. “An important part of opening the Lab included standing up a technical reports library. Since then, we have amassed millions of holdings and today we are one of the top research institutions in the country.” What had long-been a repository of classified archival materials is today a dynamic, vibrant library that outsizes the collections of other similar research libraries around the country. Today, the NSRC houses the Laboratory’s classified nuclear weapons research, data and reports, as well as unclassified historical artifacts – the stories, photos, films and more from the people who have been a part of the Lab from the start.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

September 2021 Operational Highlights

Bulleted highlights including progress report for NSRC's Rocky Flats Digitization Lab, the Online Vault bulk upload, patching and system updates, and information about publishing NSRC-produced The Vault .

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Legacy of Metropolis continues through new materials donated to classified library collections

“From the very beginning of the Los Alamos project, it was inevitable that the Laboratory would suffer total immersion in computing,” said Nicholas Constantine Metropolis in 1976, reflecting his characteristic humor. Metropolis had succinctly summarized the prominent place of computing in Los Alamos’s mission and history. Metropolis himself played no small role in that “total immersion,” exemplified by the Lab’s supercomputing center, a postdoctoral fellowship, and the world-famous algorithm that carry his name. So does a collection of legacy materials in the National Security Research Center (NSRC). The NSRC, the Lab’s classified library, which also houses unclassified artifacts, recently received a new addition to the Metropolis Collections. This donation, 22 years after his death on October 17, 1999, provides tangible evidence of Metropolis’s continuing legacy at Los Alamos.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

November 2021 Operational Highlights

Completed: 1. the initial tests of document workflows for Titan on the Red, which included standing up a software encryption capability to test data ingestion; 2. a software encryption capability in order to ingest the first data source by the end of the month; 3. a stand-alone computer for classified ontology data entry. Titan on the Red is an artificial intelligence/machine learning system to make digitizing, cataloging, and searching NSRC collections easier and more efficient. Created Online Vault backups, with one copy stored at LANL and one shipped to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Online Vault is a classified, searchable library of LANL’s nuclear weapons design and test history. Imported new Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) documents based on revised access categories. Bulk ingested nearly 10,000 documents via java-based PowerLoader. This application ingests metadata and content into the Online Vault to meet the requirements for the NSRC collections. Rehoused 300 linear feet of weapons physics documents in archival, acid-free storage folders and boxes.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

The ‘Charlotte Serber Center’ named, dedicated Classified library honors first librarian, only female wartime Group leader

As our Lab was being created nearly 80 years, J. Robert Oppenheimer handpicked Charlotte Serber for what he considered one of the most critical positions: to oversee the wartime technical library. Today, serving as the director of the National Security Research Center (NSRC), I can attest to both the importance of Oppie’s pick and affirm that he made the right choice. The NSRC is the Lab’s classified library and we’ve evolved from that inaugural wartime technical library. Thanks to Serber, those materials remain a vital part of our collections today.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Witness the Trinity test through Lab artifacts

July 16 marks the 77th anniversary of the Trinity test, conducted in a desert in New Mexico. The test subject, an atomic bomb called The Gadget, was successfully detonated from a 100-foot steel tower. This event marks the commencement of the Atomic Age, a new era where fission capabilities could be employed for national security purposes. Shortly after the Trinity test, two Los Alamos-created atomic weapons were released above Japan, helping to end the world’s bloodiest conflict just weeks later. “Trinity was one of the greatest scientific experiments ever,” said NSRC Senior Historian Alan Carr said. “Los Alamos scientists changed the world forever on that day. Not only was it the dawn of the Atomic Age, but also the beginning of the Lab’s eight decades of cutting-edge science and its national security charge.” To preserve this event, and to continue to learn more about this critical moment in history, the National Security Research Center (NSRC) curates a collection of photographs, films, notes, unclassified artifacts and numerous other materials related to the science of the test. Notably, the collection includes a novel material that formed at the site, trinitite, and artifacts from one of the intriguing scientists present at the test, Enrico Fermi.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2022

From print to digital: Preserving over 10,000 McKibbin Cards

Collections management staff from the National Security Research Center (NSRC) recently digitized more than 10,000 McKibbin Cards to make them accessible on the Lab’s unclassified network, said NSRC collections management team leader Patricia Cote (WRS-NSRCMS). The cards, named after Dorothy McKibbin, who was known as the gatekeeper of Los Alamos because she was often the first point of contact for new hires, have become symbolic of the Lab when the world’s greatest minds secretly gathered to create the first atomic bomb and end World War II.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Video, photos capture first full-scale H-bomb test 70 years ago

This collection of images was curated by the National Security Research Center in recognition of the 70 th anniversary of the nuclear test codenamed “Mike” of Operation Ivy. The NSRC is the Lab’s classified library, which also houses unclassified artifacts from the Lab’s history. The NSRC has archived photos of nuclear tests from over the years to preserve our history.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Fielding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests at the National Security Research Center

For staff at the Lab’s National Security Research Center, fulfilling requests for information can sometimes be a bit otherworldly. Some of these requests are made under the Freedom of Information Act or FOIA, which are submitted to NNSA by the public and directed to LANL for records search and review. The topics of these requests range from technical reports to records on unidentified flying objects. “Fulfilling FOIA requests is an important part of what we do here,” said NSRC senior archivist Daniel Alcazar (WRS-NSRCMS). “It’s critical to our mission to ensure the public has access to information it has the right to see.” Congress passed the FOIA in 1967, giving any person the right to request access to federal agency records so they can better understand the U.S. Government’s operations and activities. Federal agencies are required to disclose information requested under the FOIA, unless it falls under one or more of nine exemptions protecting interests such as personal privacy, national security, and law enforcement. Often described as the law that keeps citizens in the know about the government, the FOIA is a vital part of U.S. democracy. The Laboratory’s FOIA program works with over a hundred requests for records each year. As the Lab’s classified research and technical library dedicated to information stewardship and education, the National Security Research Center (NSRC) regularly assists with these requests– as many as 45 per year. Public queries cover a spectrum of topics, but most common include requests for Manhattan Project era documents and memoranda, Los Alamos technical reports, Los Alamos-produced historical and scientific motion picture film and videos, as well as those seeking any documents or files pertaining to a former scientist, engineer or employee. While less common, Alcazar estimates that he receives a few FOIA requests a year related to unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP).

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Oscar Seborer: Father of the Soviet Atomic Bomb?

Seventy-five years after the end of World War II, atomic spies continue to captivate and revolt the American public. Theodore "Ted" Hall, Klaus Fuchs, and David Greenglass all committed espionage at Los Alamos during the war. It has also been conjectured that there was an unidentified spy known only by the code-name PERSEUS, but there is a growing consensus among scholars that PERSEUS never existed. However, in September 2019, historians Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes unmasked a fourth Los Alamos spy code-named GODSEND. His name: Oscar Seborer. When the New York Times reported the story of Seborer's treachery in November 2019, almost nothing was known about his work at the Laboratory. However, recently discovered documents in the National Security Research Center (NSRC) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) offer some clues as to what GODSEND may have stolen for Stalin.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2020

Need something worthwhile to read and watch? The Lab’s classified library director, senior historian’s offer recommendations

Social distancing has many of us turning even more to our streaming services and e-bookshelves in our free time. But if you’re looking for something even more compelling than Tiger King, staff from the National Security Research Center (the Lab’s classified library) have some recommendations for you. NSRC Director Riz Ali and Senior Historian Alan Carr share their top picks of books and movies on Los Alamos and atomic bomb history.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2021

Riz Ali bio

Rizwan Ali is the Director of the National Security Research Center (NSRC), Los Alamos National Laboratory's classified library. As the Director, he sets the strategic direction for one of the largest libraries in the United States.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2021

The archives of the future

The term “artificial intelligence” (AI) - essentially programming machines to think like humans - conjures up different emotions in different people. Some view it with fear, imagining a malevolent AI similar to Skynet in the Terminator movies. Others see something benevolent, such as the character Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation . Still others see it as a means to advance the frontiers of science, engineering and technology to new levels not possible through traditional means. At the National Security Research Center (NSRC or the Center), which is the classified library at Los Alamos National Laboratory, we see AI as a tool to help us go through the monumental tasks we have in digitizing, cataloging, and searching our collections.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗