National Historical Publications And Records Commission Research Articles

The Hamlin Garland Papers: Adapting Former Processing Activities to New Contexts

The Hamlin Garland papers first came to the University of Southern California (USC) in 1940 and since then, various library staff, researchers, and student workers have applied different and sometimes conflicting processing strategies over a period of almost 80 years. In 2017, a National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant made possible the digitization and description of Garland’s correspondence. This gave current USC archivists the opportunity to address some of the issues and threats facing the Garland papers, while also providing new methods of access and discovery to this valuable collection.

Grants for Processing: A Case Study in Grant Writing and Project Management at the Brooklyn College Archives

This article describes the process of finding the right grant to meet the needs of a processing project, the application and peer review process, and the experience of administering the grant received from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). The project is the processing of the YWCA of Brooklyn Collection, housed at Brooklyn College. The records have significant research potential in a variety of fields including women’s studies and sociology. While generally smooth, the administration of the grant has required the replacement of a departing Project Archivist, and the use of interns for some conservation work.

Preserving the H-Net Email Lists: A Case Study in Trusted Digital Repository Assessment

In 2007, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) funded a two-year project to assess and improve the preservation of the academic email lists of the H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online consortium using the Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification (TRAC): Criteria and Checklist. The project demonstrated that the TRAC could be applied to a repository functioning as a live access system, although the installation of a separate, server-based preservation environment is recommended. Tools used in this study, including a framework for documenting digital preservation policies, are applicable to the preservation of email list archives as well as more complex data sets.

Partners in Preservation: New Mexico

Archival repositories in New Mexico have benefited greatly from funding provided by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), and its predecessor, the National Historical Publications Commission (NHPC). Since 1967 NHPRC funds have supported records and publication projects that ensured the preservation of and access to New Mexico's historical patrimony.

Personal Email Management on the University Digital Desktop: User Behaviors vs. Archival Best Practices

AbstractThis paper will review findings from an extensive user study which seeks to understand the ways in which individuals currently manage, interact with, and think about electronic files, particularly email. Funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), we web‐surveyed nearly 3000 faculty, staff, and administrators; and conducted personal follow‐up interviews with 100 people across two universities: one public, one private. Our findings indicate that users and archivists have competing concerns. User concerns revolve around the volume of files with which they are forced to contend, leading to wasted time, improperly deleted files, confusion, and general dissatisfaction with the networked environment. Archivists, on the other hand, concerned with the preservation of digital materials, are focused on organizational issues that are often at odds with users' daily practice.

InterPARES: Securing the Future of Our Electronic Records

InterPARES: Securing the Future of Our Electronic Records

The Beginnings of the NHPRC Records Program

In 1974, federal legislation enlarged the scope and function of the National Historical Publications Commission (NHPC) by providing authority for the Commission to support archival projects in public and private institutions. The first six years of the newly formed National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) were devoted to the development of state structures to assist in the program's implementation, and national priorities that could address questions of documentary preservation and enhanced researcher use. The debates within the Commission and among archivists nationwide during the startup period centered on three questions: how much appropriated funding would be provided to the Commission for grants?; what role should the states play in shaping and implementing the program?; and what priorities should be established in order to advance the solution to national research needs? The staff, the Commission members, the Archivist of the United States, the state archivists, and the professional archival organizations all became important contributors to the initiation of the first national effort to improve archival processes and the condition of documentary resources in the United States.

Search for tomorrow: The electronic records research program of the u.s. national historical publications and records commission

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) is a small grant-making agency affiliated with the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. The Commission is charged with promoting the preservation and dissemination of documentary source materials to ensure an understanding of U.S. history. Recognizing that the increasing use of computers created challenges for preserving the documentary record, the Commission adopted a research agenda in 1991 to promote research and development on the preservation and continued accessibility of documentary materials in electronic form. From 1991 to the present the Commission awarded 31 grants totaling $2,276,665 for electronic records research. Most of this research has focused on two issues of central concern to archivists: (1) electronic record keeping (tools and techniques to manage electronic records produced in an office environment, such as word processing documents and electronic mail), and (2) best practices for storing, describing, and providing access to all electronic records of long-term value. NHPRC grants have raised the visibility of electronic records issues among archivists. The grants have enabled numerous archives to begin to address electronic records problems, and, perhaps most importantly, they have stimulated discussion about electronic records among archivists and records managers.

Electronic Records Training: Suggestions for the Implementation of the CART Curriculum

Prior to its dissolution, the Committee on Automated Records and Techniques (CART) developed a curriculum for electronic records training and education as part of a National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant. This article explores decisions that were made by the developers regarding whom to train and adult learning needs and speculates on possible delivery methods for the curriculum, which include on-the-job training, workshops, formal education programs, distance education, and self-directed study.

A Positive Approach to Negatives: Preserving Photographs via Microfilm Technology

Special Collections and Archives at George Mason University (GMU) is one of many American archives responsible for a large collection of photographic negatives facing deterioration. At particular risk recently at GMU's Fenwick Library was the Library of Congress Federal Theatre Project (FTP) Collection. What follows is a discussion of GMU's experience in preserving the extensive volume of negatives in this collection and contracting with a firm that operates a LogEtronic camera, a photo-reduction mechanism capable of producing microfilm directly from photographic negatives. The Library of Congress FTP Collection has been on permanent loan from the Library of Congress (LC) since 1974. The Federal Theatre Project, one of the four Works Progress Administration (WPA) emergency relief programs during the Great Depression, provided work for unemployed theatre people. The collection consists mainly of the records of 3,129 theatrical productions and includes playscripts, set and costume designs, photographs, posters, production bulletins, playbills, research material, technical drawings, music, and some administrative material. The photographs represent a visual record of the casts, sets, costumes, personnel, and theaters of the FTP productions. The 9,000 negatives, predominantly on safety film and ranging in size from four by five inches to five by seven inches, with a handful of 35mm, were deteriorating alarmingly as they reached their fiftieth year in 1985. Neither GMU's library nor LC could undertake financially the task of duplicating the materials. Further, LC, as a federal agency, could not seek grant money from another federal agency such as the National Endowment for the Humanities or the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), seemingly the most promising sources for assistance. Therefore, GMU's Special Collections and Archives, with the support of LC, began the search for grant funding for a microfilm project. During a telephone inquiry to NHPRC, a grants analyst suggested that the microfilming be accomplished using a LogEtronic camera. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) was already experiencing success in the use of a LogEtronic camera that conformed to its preservation standards. The camera, operational there since about 1978, was used for various purposes: to duplicate photographs that would be prohibitively expensive to reproduce through traditional means, to provide copies for researchers in order to avoid excessive handling of originals, to salvage images in deteriorating negatives, and to copy parts of large aerial imagery. Next, a representative from a company in nearby Maryland made a site visit, with examples of deteriorating negatives (before) and microfiche copies (after), demonstrating visually what the LogEtronic camera was capable of doing—not only copying the negative, but indeed enhancing it in the duplicate microfiche. It was especially evident that the image of even the deteriorated negatives could be enhanced and preserved by this method. Unfortunately, during the time it took to write the grant proposal the company went out of business. We were told about another company, then called Eikon Radiographics, now

The Government, the Historical Profession, and Historical Editing: A Review

Just over thirty years ago in a ceremony at the Library of Congress Harry S Truman was presented with the first volume of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. That same year the Federal Records Act resuscitated the National Historical Publications Commission, which had been created at the same time as the National Archives in order to plan and recommend a national program of documentary publication. In 1954, in response to Trumen's requests and after considerable study, the commission sent to President Eisenhower A National Program for the Publication of Historical Documents and thus launched a renaissance of historical editing in the United States. We have come far in three decades. By early 1979 the expanded and retitled National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)* spending some fourteen millions of federal dollars itself and with over eighteen million more of private donations, had sponsored the publication of some 237 letterpress volumes and nearly 5000 microfilm reels of historical documents, with many more partially completed and projected. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) contributed at least another seven and a half million dollars, and what with support from the institutions sponsoring and housing the projects, university presses, business, and foundations, the amount of money devoted to historical editing has undoubtedly exceeded forty million dollars. What has this money accomplished, and what is being accomplished now, every year, by the expenditure of over three million dollars in federal funds alone?1 Without question the huge outpouring of documents published with NHPRC and NEH guidance and encouragement has bestowed on historians greatly expanded access to the sources for teaching and research. Scholars now have much more accurate texts of important documents, large runs of

Directory of Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the United States (review)

BOOK REVIEW363 army strength," thereby undermining popular backing, discouraging enlistments, and paving die way for military defeat (p. 151). Escott's thesis is weakened by its reliance on several unproven assumptions. He assumes that it was within the power of one man to mitigate the Confederacy's internal deficiencies so as to avoid military defeat, evidently forgetting that Davis was not even able to feed and clothe the army adequately, let alone the civilian population. He also assumes that civilian disaffection was the main cause of military defeat, whereas the overwhelming weight of evidence, it seems to me, shows that failure in battle was, with all its consequences, by far the most important reason for declining morale. Finally, Escott assumes that the Confederacy lacked the allegiance of the majority of whites to such a degree as to justify his conclusion that Confederate nationalism failed. The fact is that three-fourths ofwhite male Confederates ofmilitary age served in the army, and more than half of those who served suffered wounds or death. If devotion to the cause is Escott's yardstick for nationalism, and if this remarkable display of patriotism and sacrifice is considered to have been insufficient, one wonders what would satisfy him. There is no doubt that Escott wants to be fair to Davis, and he has some very complimentary things to say about him. There are, in fact, inconsistencies in his presentation suggesting that he does not subscribe wholeheartedly to his own thesis, given his own presentation of the appalling difficulties with which David grappled so courageously. The book is written in a clear and straightforward style, and it provides a useful overview of the Confederacy's internal travails. Ludwell H. Johnson College of William and Mary Directory of Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the UnitedStates. (Washington, D.C: National Historical Publications and Records Commission, 1978. Pp. 905. $25.00.) Since the publication of Philip M. Hamer's A Guide to Archives and Manuscripts in the United States in 1961, various institutions have produced guides or catalogs of their holdings. Archives and manuscript repositories have also reported their more significant collections in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) and American Literary Manuscripts. In the knowledge that Hamer's Guide especially was outdated, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) embarked on a program in 1974 to prepare a revised version. Rather than confine the project to Hamer alone, the NHPRC contacted repositories listed in NUCMC and in other publications. As a result, the number of entries more than doubled from some 1,300 in Hamer to 2,675 364CIVIL WAR HISTORY individual repositories in the Directory. As for its geographical scope, institutions are included for each of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Canal Zone, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Marianas Trust Territory. The entries are arranged alphabetically, first by state or territory, then by city, and last by the name of the institution. The Directory is useful for locating relatively current information on an archives or historical society. In addition to addresses, phone numbers and thehours when a repository is open, theDirectory includes a general description of individual holdings as well as appropriate sources to consult for more detail. Most entries also contain a section that lists the major subject areas for which an institution solicits material. Given the alphabetical arrangement of the work, one can easily consult the Directory to determine whether an institution in a particular geographical area might be interested in accepting material on a certain subject, such as letters to and from James A. Garfield. Should he wish to choose from among allknown repositories that collect Garfield material, however, he must first examine the entire volume in order to find most of the choices available. That is, he cannot simply rely on the index in the Directory. For those who require a comprehensive fist of known source material in a subject area, the name and broad subject index in this volume is not that useful. Under the "CONFEDERACY," for example, the index lists only six entries. In contrast, Hamer has eleven. More seriously, the index might actually tend to mislead novice or even experienced researchers...