Wow Bill on the front page! For what it’s worth, he’s the only author who has written me back after I sent him a note through USPS. He’s a fascinating, charitable thinker with a multifaceted oeuvre and this text will be a profound addition to it.
Yes, they 100% do bring out unique archival records for you to review. It's one of the neat things about going to the facility!
Sometimes if there's a more extensive process to retrieve the record (i.e. your archivist has to talk to a different government entity or agency to get the information) you might get some facsimiles, but often the information is only captured in the physical document that you're looking at. Moreover, to reiterate my point from above, part of the reason that College Park is making this decision (probably) is because it takes time and coordination to get these documents, and they want to ensure that--with limited staff and resources--they're still able to fulfill their mission of providing access to information.
Most of the records that exist under NARA's purview are not backed up at all. There's a major initiative to digitize existing holdings, but that's challenging/fraught with staffing issues. It's basically an under- or un-funded mandate.
My partner works for NARA, but not in this office. Outside of the large amount of departures and RIF actions taken for the agency, there's lots of challenges regarding staffing for people who come in off the street and do not have succinct, coherent research questions. Staff are duty-bound to respond to all queries, regardless of how good they are.
I imagine this research card policy does two things:
1. Raises an easy bureaucratic barrier for people who just drop in and expect/demand help
2. Gives staff an opportunity to refuse access to people who may have non-research intent from accessing the building
It's likely the example you provided qualifies as a business need. They just don't want you hanging around and getting in the way of them helping people who scheduled a consultation, have an appointment, etc.
Totally agree on the poorly-constructed sentence. I wish they had said it more succinctly/precisely.