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.