Shift in History: National Archives Moves : Records: Archivists are boxing up Nixon’s tapes, Kennedy’s windshield and Brady’s photos. It will take years to truck 1,300 loads to a new site in Maryland.

Hate moving? Be thankful you’re not the National Archives.

It is carting thousands of boxes and crates of precious historical items--from rare Civil War photographs to Watergate tapes--to a $250-million research building in College Park, Md.

The move beginning today will take three years, require at least 1,300 truckloads and cost $6.8 million, said Susan Cooper, spokeswoman for the National Archives and Records Administration.

Much of the 765,934 cubic feet of material will be placed in 2.3 million small, specially designed and cushioned containers so that the contents are protected from temperature fluctuations and humidity.

The items range from documents so old and fragile they can’t be exposed to sunlight to the cracked windshield of the limousine President John F. Kennedy sat in when he was assassinated.

The windshield will be wrapped in Styrofoam, put in a specially designed crate and transported along a special route to avoid potholes.

The Watergate tapes will be transported in armored cars.

Unlike many people facing a move, the National Archives didn’t wait until the last minute to pack.

“We have people who have already been working on this move for five years, full time,” Cooper said. “And they will continue to work on this for another three years.”

The movers will transport 7 million photographs, 11 million charts, maps and aerial photographs, 112,274 reels of motion pictures and 200,122 sound and video recordings, according to archivists.

The photograph collection includes pictures taken by Mathew Brady during the Civil War, work by Ansel Adams and hundreds of thousands of photographs taken during World War II.

Among the items that will be on display at the new research facility will be many of former President Richard Nixon’s records, documents on the Kennedy assassination and audiotapes from the Supreme Court.

The building in College Park--known as Archives II--features the most advanced pollution and environmental controls and preservation technology.

Nine laboratories will allow archivists to use the latest document preservation and storage methods and even develop new ones, Cooper said.

Paper records will be stored on mobile shelves that can be shifted electronically at a push of a button to provide access. Laid end to end, the 520 miles of shelves would reach from the agency’s downtown office to Ann Arbor, Mich.

The building can hold up to 2 million cubic feet of records, enough space to accommodate the acquisition of materials into the next century, officials said.

Nevertheless, more than a quarter-million cubic feet of material and documents--including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights--remain at the Archives’ main building in Washington.