As you've recently heard, NHPRC has been "zeroed out" in the President's
budget.  No money at all for grants, no money for the administration of
NHPRC.  The Society of American Archivists (SAA), National Association
of Government Archivists and Records Administrators (NAGARA) and Council
of State Historical Records Coordinators (COSHRC) have formed a Joint
Task Force on Advocacy to take action collaboratively on this issues.
This effort also is being coordinated with the Association for
Documentary Editors and the National Coalition for History.

This group is developing an action plan which will be shared in more
detail, but for now there is an immediate need to take the first
step--Letters to the Senate and House Appropriations Committee urging
them to restore funding for NHPRC.  The committees begin meeting March
1, so letters need to go out this week.   Letters need to come from
people who have received NHPRC grants or from people who have benefited
from the projects--genealogists, local government officials, historians,
teachers, etc.  In particular, please look for people who may have
connections to the member of Congress, or try to get letters from the
head of a library, historical society, or government that got an NHPRC
grant.

Letters FAXED this week would be perfectly timed to get their
attention.  Email is not given much credence at this point because of
the amount that comes in, and land mail is irradiated, adding literally
weeks of time to receipt. So the mid-level Fax technology works best for
this.

More information about this effort, including guidelines for preparing
a letter and a list of the Senate and House Appropriations Committee
members may be found at the SAA website:
http://www.archivists.org/news/nhprc-FY2006.asp

Ray LaFever
New York State Archives

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