Visiting the rotunda? Leave camera at home.

• Position: ARCHIVES - Brief article

If you want a picture of yourself standing next to the original Declaration of Independence, you are out of luck. To protect several valuable historical documents displayed, The National Archives has banned all photography in the Rotunda in Washington, D.C., where the original copies of the Declaration, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are on display.

Over many decades, flash photography has taken its toll on the old, fragile records. Kitty Nicholson, the Archive's senior conservator, estimates the documents had been exposed to more than 50,000 bright flashes each year before the ban.

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In an interview with...