ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 15, Number 41 Date: April 4, 2006 In This Issue: CONTACT YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS AND ASK THEM TO RESTORE FUNDING TO THE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDS COMMISSION President Bush's FY 2007 budget request proposes zeroing out all funding for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the grant-making arm of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). NHPRC is composed of fifteen members, representing the three branches of the federal government and six professional associations of archivists, historians, documentary editors, and records officers. NHPRC makes grants each year to institutions across the country to preserve historical records, publish historical papers, and to make historical materials more accessible. Contact your Members of Congress and ask them to restore NHPRC funding to the FY 2006 level of $5 million. The National Coalition for History provided the following information on NHPRC. GENERAL BACKGROUND -- THE NHPRC: The National Historical Publications Commission was created with the National Archives in 1934, given its own staff in 1951, authorized to make grants in 1964, and reorganized in 1975 as the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. It is composed of fifteen members, representing the three branches of the federal government and six professional associations of archivists, historians, documentary editors, and records officers. In order to accomplish its mandate, the NHPRC sets strategic priorities and uses modest federal grants to stimulate state, local, institutional, and private contributions and the assistance of its experienced staff to grantees to address these priorities. It is the only grant making organization, public or private, whose mission is to provide national leadership in the effort to promote the preservation and accessibility of historical records and to publish the papers of significant figures and themes in American history. As characterized by former Archivist of the United States John Carlin, the NHPRC is "History's venture capitalist" -- through federal outright and matching grants, it successfully leverages private sector contributions to projects such as the publishing of the papers of nationally significant individuals and institutions. The NHPRC is currently helping to fund dozens of papers projects, including those of founders Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Adams, and Madison; projects documenting the ratification of the U.S. Constitution and the First Federal Congress; the correspondence between Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt, the Frederick Douglass Papers, and the Papers of General George C. Marshall. It has funded hundreds of projects designed to preserve historical records of enduring value and cooperative state, regional, and national projects that address common archival issues, such as the complex problem of electronic historical records. The President's proposed FY2007 would abruptly terminate the livelihood and programmatic integrity of this vital agency. If the President's recommendation of zero funding is adopted, documentary publications projects, which are already universally understaffed and underfunded, will lose experienced staff and their progress will be slowed, or even halted altogether. Efforts to digitize the products of these projects would be curtailed as well. The very existence of state and regional activities in planning and implementing archival programs, already seriously hampered by funding cutbacks in the states, is imperiled. Without adequate funding, research on the pressing problem of electronic records will be curtailed, jeopardizing the preservation of important historical documentation--the raw materials for historians of the future. The Commission has an excellent record of accomplishment and is seen as a model federal grants program. For example, following the disastrous events resulting from the terrorist attack of 9/11, it was due to a NHPRC grant that New York City archivists and curators had a disaster preparedness plan in place and were able to cope with and minimize the detrimental impacts of the World Trade Center collapse on collections in lower Manhattan. Additional information on NHPRC can be found at: http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/. Use ALA's Washington Office Legislative Action Center at: http://capwiz.com/ala/home You can also call your Member of Congress directly using the U.S. Capitol switchboard at: (202) 225-3121. ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALA Washington Office, 1615 New Hampshire Ave., N.W., First Floor, Washington, D.C. 20009-2520; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Don Essex, Melanie Anderson, Erin Haggerty, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.