Friday, February 18, 2005
As we informed you last week, NHPRC has been "zeroed
out" in the President's budget. No money at all for grants, no
money for the administration of NHPRC. Members of the COSHRC board have
been worked steadily since then to gather further information and to
develop materials for you to use with constituents in addressing this
issue with members of Congress. We have worked collaboratively in a
joint task force for advocacy with the Society of American Archivists,
the National Association of Government Archivists and Records Administrators,
the Association for Documentary Editors and the National Coalition for
History.
We have developed an action plan which can be boiled
down for this message, to several steps:
1. 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 in the coming week to 10 days. Letters need to come from people
who have received NHPRC grants in your state (see the NHPRC website
for a summary of those: ) or from people who have benefitted from the
projects--genealogists, local government officials, historians, teachers,
etc. In particular, 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.
2. Letters to Senators
and Congress members on related committees urging them to press
their Appropriations colleagues to restore funding. If your senator
or member of congress is not on the attached lists, but you can get
people to write, then do ask them to urge their colleagues on the appropriations
committee to restore NHPRC funding.
3. Visits to the home offices
of the Senate and House Appropriations Committee members. If
you or your constituents are going to be in Washington DC, a visit to
the DC offices would also be important. We'll communicate more on this
later to encourage visits in mid-March to early April.
4. Phone calls to the DC
office of Appropriations Committee members to talk to the staffer
responsible for working on appropriations issues and to urge them to
restore funding. (If you or your constituent can't visit, a phone call
gives the opportunity for some personal emphasis and dialogue).
We ask you to help us in taking the first step right
away-- making contact with the members of the Senate and House Appropriations
Committee. Their deliberations begin March 1, so letters FAXED next
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.
Attached are several items to assist you with this
effort.
First, there is a "draft message" attachment
with information to guide your constituents in developing the content
of the letter they should fax out.
A second file contains background information on
NHPRC that may be helpful for letters, phone calls and visits.
Third is a document with "answers" to
some of the questions and concerns that may be raised in calls or visits--and
do let us know if you think of others.
Finally also attached are files with the House
and the Senate appropriations committee members.
Our final request is that you let us know your progress--if
you can get copies of letters to forward on to us, that would be incredibly
helpful. At the very least we'd like to track how many letters go to
each member of congress and from whom so we can be sure there is a good
flow of mail to each person.
If you have any questions on all of this, don't hesitate
to email or call me. We'll try to personally call those of you with
Approps members in the next week to talk more.
Despite the general budget woes of the world, we have
a unique opportunity to really improve the resources for all of our
institutions and our states. With Dr. Weinstein's swearing in as Archivist
of the United States, we have a strong advocate in place, so this is
a crucial time for us to work on first getting NHPRC back in shape,
and then working to bring additional funds that can be routed through
our states.
Please join us in taking advantage of this opportunity
to strengthen archives around our nation. We appreciate your efforts,
and are ready to do all we can to help. Let me know how we can be of
assistance!
Kathleen
Kathleen D. Roe
President, Council of State Historical Records Coordinators
tel: 518-961-1550
