I'm about to get archival on your ... (Wikimedia Commons)

Yesterday a room of sharply dressed archivists, librarians and book conservators burst into laughter at a joke about mildew. They’re a funny bunch, these keepers of our national record, excited by different things than you and I. When they mention the billions of records, of which only a sliver has been digitized, currently stored in limestone caves in Lenexa, Kan., their eyes light up like deep-sea explorers contemplating the ocean. They all have stories to tell.

Stories like the time they found a trove of Walt Whitman documents written while he was a clerk in the Attorney General's office. They were forgotten documents, which were only identified by a scholar who recognized the handwriting and made the connection. Or the photo unearthed of FDR standing beneath the newly laid keel of the USS Arizona in 1913, while the then-secretary of the navy was touring the Brooklyn Navy Yards. The same ship, of course, whose destruction in Pearl Harbor 28 years later would lead to arguably FDR’s most famous speech, and with it a declaration of war. As with any explorers, when they talk about the often serendipitous thrill of discovery, their enthusiasm is infectious.

“We guide people on the fun experience of doing research,” said Dorothy Dougherty, arching one eyebrow. The public programs director for the National Archives' New York City branch, Ms. Dougherty was guiding The Observer through a tour of the U.S. record keeper's new home downtown, inside the Alexander Hamilton Customs House on Bowling Green.

Downstairs, curators have put on an exhibit titled The World's Port, highlighting the various documents and records of New York Harbor. Among the notable pieces are manifest lists drawn up and signed by Herman Melville in 1867 when he was a clerk at the customs house. The exhibition is meant as an homage to the building that had taken in the archives as much as it is to the historical documents housed within it.

It’s easy to make any number of ill-conceived and off-the-cuff comments about youth and the digital world. That in this internet-addled age of instant gratification, an institution like the National Archives might seem archaic. An agency that can only offer excitement through the careful, and often tedious, task of sorting physical documents. Or, as we like to say now, data-mining.

But that wouldn't be true. According to a Pew Research Center poll released on Monday, nearly 60 percent of Americans between 16 to 29 frequented a library, and not just to surf the web: to conduct research, borrow prints and to read magazines and newspapers. Call it the Millennial Paradox. Somehow the more digitized our worlds become, the more we crave the physical connection to an object that exists in our hands.

It’s this connection that the National Archives only hopes to foster through its various programs. “The mission of the National Archives,” said David Ferriero, archivist of the United States, “is to ensure that the records of the country are available for the American public to hold the government accountable for their actions. To learn how decisions were made, to explore their family history and the history of the country through those documents.”

Formerly located on desolate Varick Street, the new offices of the National Archives in New York are located on the second floor of the customs house, with locals and out-of-towners bustling about outside between work and play, between the ferry, the Battery and the canyons of Wall Street. The new space just happens to be the same office where Melville worked 145 years ago, as one of the archive's researchers recently discovered.

“There’s no filter here,” said Mr. Ferriero, sitting in the newly refurbished research library, “It’s the high points and the low points of our government history. We only try to provide context whereby we can encourage the public to discover the past for themselves.”

First up, starting a company just isn't as expensive as it used to be (a couple years ago). 

Although the industry in 2009 is at approximately the same level as it was in 2004 by number of transactions, total dollars invested across the two regions is $615 million lower.  On a per transaction basis, this equates to a decline in average transaction size from $8.2 million in 2004 to $8.0 million in 2009 in Silicon Valley, and an even greater decline from $7.3 million to $5.9 million in New York over the same period.  This may be indicative of the media/ IT services-oriented nature of New York startups versus a more diversified (and capital-intensive) startup ecosystem out west.

And next, venture capital is gaining steam amid the slow economic recovery:

The current recovery - smoothing for a burst of investment activity in the Bay Area during Q2'10 - appears to be more robust than the one earlier in the 2000s.

The report also points out that ongoing fretting about the possibility of a bubble in technology investment may temper the exuberance seen in previous bull markets. If we are indeed more sober now than we were a few years ago, maybe we can also avoid a painful crash. 

Also: Charts!

Number of transactions in New York and Silicon Valley over the years:

Dollars invested in New York and Silicon Valley over the years:

If you spend nearly 800 billion dollars to get the economy moving again, you can be sure of three things: 1. some of the money will be wasted and/or stolen, 2. some of the money will do some good, and 3. some federal agencies will get the money out the door faster than others. One of the agencies given a large amount of new funding under the stimulus program was the Department of Energy, which received $36.7 billion dollars of the $43 billion allocated by the bill to energy projects. Since the transition to a green energy economy is critical to recovery, one would think that it would be important to spend these funds as quickly as possible.

Recall that the stimulus package included a number of provisions that simultaneously increased spending and reduced taxes. The $787 billion package spent nearly $500 billion for programs and allocated about $288 billion to tax relief. The NY Times website includes a detailed outline of the program's allocations.

The spending or non-tax portion of the bill breaks down into seven broad categories:

1.      State and local fiscal relief: $144 billion

2.      Infrastructure and Science: $111 billion

3.      Welfare Programs: $81 billion

4.      Health Care: $59 billion

5.      Education: $53 billion

6.      Energy: $43 billion

7.      Other: $8 billion

Some of the science funding is beginning to make its way to universities like the one I work at, providing funds for student scholarships, research jobs, facilities and equipment. While the impact of these funds will certainly be felt in waves, the first of these waves has hit the shore. It takes a while to make good use of these extra funds, and once we receive them from Washington, we cannot instantly build a lab or hire a researcher. Still, new grants are arriving on campuses across America, and scientists are moving quickly to take advantage of this rare opportunity to obtain extra funding for their labs. Moreover, in addition to these immediate short-term impacts, the longer-term economic benefits from scientific discoveries and newly trained researchers will ensure that the effects of these funds will be felt for many years to come.

In the Energy Department, the pace of spending stimulus funds has been excruciatingly slow. Fortunately, in recent weeks we have begun to see some signs that this particularly lumbering federal giant is finally beginning to get its act together. In early October, the Department announced a $750 million program funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to "help accelerate the development of conventional renewable energy generation projects." According to the DOE website, these funds would "cover the cost of loan guarantees which could support as much as $4 to 8 billion in lending to eligible projects." The goal is to use federal loan guarantees to entice private capital into the energy marketplace. The Department of Energy has also announced a number of grant programs for universities researching energy issues.

The Department of Energy's share of the stimulus bill totals nearly $37 billion dollars.  According to the department's "Recovery and Reinvestment" website, the funds have been earmarked for various projects and allocated in the following manner:

1.      $16.8 billion invested in improving energy efficiency and developing sources of renewable energy

2.      $6 billion for decontamination and clean up of Cold War nuclear sites

3.      $4.5 billion for development and implementation of Smart Grid programs and efficient electrical transmission

4.      $4 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects

5.      $3.4 billion for research on carbon capture and storage and other ways to control carbon emissions

6.      $1.6 billion in funding for research and academic programs like those discussed above at schools and universities across the country

7.      $400 million to the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy for other research and technology development projects

Recovery.gov, the federal government's website for tracking stimulus spending, shows that the Department of Energy has received about $18 billion (actually $18,255,356,221) of the $36.7 billion listed above, but as of October 9, 2009, had only spent about one billion (or $1,023,085,017). The Department of Energy is spending its stimulus money at a much slower rate than the rest of the federal government. While the team at Energy has only spent about 3% of the $36.7 billion they were allocated, overall federal spending has reached about 22%, or $173 billion of the full stimulus package of $787 billion. 

While I am tempted to observe that an inability to spend money may very well be a comment on the overall competence of the Department of Energy, I will instead try to believe that just like the tortoise and the hare, DOE's leadership believes that "slow and steady wins the race."

This brief run through the stimulus spending data tells us two things. First, most of the impact of the stimulus will be in the future; over three quarters of the money promised is still in the bank. Second, we should not be surprised at the lack of impact of the stimulus on development of a green energy economy. Economists are telling us that the recession is over, yet unemployment is still rising. Perhaps the economy needs an extra shot of stimulus to caffeinate the job market. The good news is that when you look at the spending data, that extra burst of economic espresso is still being brewed.