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(FWD) NCC Washington Update, Vol 6, #10, March 29, 2000



NCC Washington Update, Vol 6, #10, March 29, 2000
   by Page Putnam Miller, Director of the National Coordinating
      Committee for the Promotion of History <pagem@capaccess.org>

1.   Archivist Testifies on FY 2001 Budget
2.   Jefferson Lecture and National
           Humanities Council Meeting

1.  Archivist Testifies on FY 2001 Budget - The House Subcommittee on
Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government of the Appropriations
Committee held an hour long hearing on March 28 to hear the testimony of
U. S. Archivist John Carlin on the Administration's FY 2001 budget
request for the National Archives and the National Historical
Publications and Records Commission. The President has proposed $308.343
million for the National Archives, a $77.755 million increase over the
FY 2000 level of $230.588 million, with most of the new money going
toward the renovation of the Archives building on the Mall.  The request
includes $6 million for the grants program of the NHPRC. Representative
Jim Kolbe (R- AZ), the Chair of the Subcommittee, presided.  Also
attending were Representatives Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the Ranking Minority
member, and David Price (D-NC). Kolbe began the hearing my commending
Carlin's leadership and emphasizing the important mission of the
National Archives.

Discussion of electronic records dominated much of the hearing.  In his
opening statement, Carlin announced plans for a major new collaboration
with the National Science Foundation to create an Electronic Records
Archives.  "In simplest terms," Carlin explained, "this Electronic
Records Archives will be able to preserve any kind of electronic record,
free it from the format in which it was created, retain it indefinitely,
and enable requesters to read it on computer systems now in use and
coming in the future."  Carlin also highlighted the collaborative work
of the National Archives with the San Diego Supercomputer Center and the
Department of Defense.

In the question and answer portion of the hearing, Kolbe focused on
budget issues asking if the request for $88 million for the renovation
could be phased in over several years instead of all coming in the FY
2001 budget.  Kolbe also tried to get an estimate of the projected costs
for 2002 and beyond of implementing the electronic records projects.
Kolbe said that he had heard some mention of the very rough amount of
$130 million.  Carlin responded by saying that is would less than $130
million but more than the $2 million for the initial research.  Koble
asked, as he has in previous hearings, about the National Archives'
plans to improve their response time to the approximately 1.5 million
requests a year from veterans about their military service and
entitlement to benefits.  Carlin had a chart that showed plans for a
dramatic improvement by 2001 in these responses.  He acknowledged that
in recent years the Archives has had a backlog of 30,000 to 140,000
unanswered requests.  The goal he said is to answer all requests in six
days.

Hoyer was interested in how the staff at Archives I would be affected by
the renovation and inquired about how the private and corporate doners
would be recognized for their contributions to the renovations of the
exhibit and education areas of Archives I.  Price asked questions about
the time table for the electronic records project and about funding for
the grants program of the National Historical Publication and Records
Commission.  Responding to the question on the time table, Carlin said
that the National Archives would begin asking for sizeable amounts of
money in FY 2002 for the implementation of the electronic records
projects, some of which are now in the prototype stage and others are
still in the research phase of theoretical concepts.  He stressed that
he anticipates that the electronic records project will not be fully
operational until 2004 or 2005.  In describing the stages of
development, he said that making the State Department 1970s cables
accessible electronically would be a priority for 2002.  To the question
of whether Carlin felt that an increase in funding for NHPRC grants is
warranted in the future, Carlin said that he thought the answer to that
would evolve in the next few months.

2.  Jefferson Lecture and National Humanities Council Meeting - James M.
McPherson, who has taught history at Princeton University for almost
four decades, and is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning
bestseller, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, gave the Jefferson
Lecture on March 27 at the Kennedy Center in Washington before a crowd
of 2,200.  The annual NEH-sponsored Jefferson Lecture is the highest
honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual
achievement in the humanities.  McPherson in a lecture, titled "'For a
Vast Future Also': Lincoln and the Millennium," explored facets of
Lincoln's leadership, the differing views of liberty, and the impact of
the Civil War on other parts of the world.

At the March 28 meeting of the National Humanities Council -- which
meets three times a year to advise the Chair of the National Endowment
for the Humanities on new program initiatives, policies and procedures,
and grant applications -- most of the open portion of the meeting was
devoted to presentations and informational items.  Bill Ferris, the
Chairman of NEH, welcomed the new council members, four of whom are
historians: Edward L. Ayers of the University of Virginia, Ira Berlin of
the University of Maryland, Pedro Castillo of the University of
California at Santa Cruz, and Evelyn Edson of Piedmont Virginia
Community College. Ferris noted that NEH is working with the White House
to fill the 14 Council seats that are currently vacant or are being
filled by members who are serving past the expiration of their terms.
Ferris applauded the new project "My History is America's History," that
will encourage millions of Americans to learn more about their family's
history and to place that history in the context of the broad sweep of
American and world history, and the new initiative "Extending the
Reach," that provides special grants to under served institutions,
communities, and areas across the country to enable them to participate
more fully in NEH programs and activities.

The meeting featured two presentations.  Mary Regula, the wife of
Representative Regula, has spearheaded the development of the First
Ladies Library in Canton, Ohio, and spoke about the Library and the
variety of materials and bibliographic tools that it makes available
over the Internet.  The First Ladies Library is one of the many
educational sites to which NEH provides links through its award winning
Internet site, EDSITEment, <http://edsitement.neh.gov>.  Michael
Cogswell, the Director of the Louis Armstrong House and Archives on the
campus of Queens College, described the rapidly growing collection of
materials associated with Louis Armstrong.  This collection includes
hundreds of homemade tape recordings, photographs, scrapbooks, musical
scores, letters and manuscripts.  An NEH Perseveration and Access grant
to the Louis Armstrong Archive has provided valuable assistance to this
rich collection.

Most of the work of the Council is conducted in committee meetings.
However, during the open session, the head of the Council's Research
Committee did announce that the committee had received a staff analysis
of background material relevant to using matching funds for long term
documentary editing projects.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** *  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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