A source-first archive
The archive begins with records produced by public institutions: presidential papers, legislation, congressional proceedings, agency reports, preserved White House pages, Library of Congress collections, and National Archives materials. These sources document what officials said and did; they do not by themselves settle how those actions should be judged.
Secondary scholarship and reporting are useful for interpretation, verification, and competing perspectives. When added, they should be clearly identified rather than presented as official records.
Selection and interpretation
Chronologies are selective. Inclusion signals historical relevance to the story being told, not a claim that omitted events were unimportant. Policy pages distinguish enacted law, executive action, implementation, litigation, political claims, and later reversal whenever those distinctions matter.
Administration “record” pages are preserved as primary evidence of how the Obama White House described its own work. Their statistics and conclusions should be read as claims from that administration and, where possible, paired with independent government data or later scholarship.
Images, quotation, and accessibility
The current photographs were produced by federal government employees in the course of official duties and are identified as public domain. Captions name the creator or agency when known. Future additions must include rights information and descriptive alternative text.
Quotations are kept short except where a full public-domain government transcript is necessary to scholarship. Pages use semantic headings, landmarks, breadcrumb navigation, keyboard-visible focus, reduced-motion support, and text alternatives as baseline requirements.
Corrections and revision
Historical archives improve through revision. Dates, figures, links, transcriptions, and interpretations may be corrected as better evidence becomes available. Each substantive page should eventually carry a reviewed date and revision note.
The archive is independent and is not affiliated with Barack or Michelle Obama, the Obama Foundation, the National Archives, the White House, or the United States government.
- Prefer stable government and institutional URLs
- Link claims to the closest available primary record
- Separate quotation from summary and interpretation
- Record image rights and descriptive text
- Correct transparently when stronger evidence emerges