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Los Alamos National Laboratory has been up and running for more than 75 years, which means the Laboratory has accumulated quite the collection of classified weapons research materials in its vault. Most of these include official documents, drawings, and films produced by the Laboratory and other organizations in the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Defense (DOD). Some of the materials are papers or notebooks from scientists and engineers who’ve long been retired, and unless they belonged to someone famous (such as J. Robert Oppenheimer), they’ve long been forgotten. Until now.

In June, the Laboratory’s Weapons Research Services Division opened the National Security Research Center in the National Security Sciences Building. The center has increased access to the archived documents and other media in the vault. “We spruced up the vault to include a nice viewing room so that scientists and engineers can sit for a while and read historical documents,” says Program Manager Julie Maze. “We also created an easy-to-use search capability on the classified network so that researchers can look for hard-copy documents in the vault, then make specific requests to see them.”

The center is available not just to Los Alamos employees but also to members of the military and employees of other DOE laboratories. “People working to keep our nation safe should be able to build on what’s already been learned,” Maze says. “Now, more than ever, it’s important they have access to that information.” ★