The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) recently announced that 149 successful applicants will receive $11.9 million in awards and offers. These NEH grants come from four of the Endowment’s major program areas–public, education, research, and preservation and access–as well as one special grant program in the Digital Humanities.

In a legal brief filed in federal court this week, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) stated that by the end of March it would be releasing approximately 10,000 pages of Senator Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) daily schedule records from her time as first lady. However, the Archives told the court it would be one to two years before it could begin processing the approximately 20,000 pages of telephone logbooks that were requested by the watchdog group Judicial Watch under a Freedom of Information Act request filed in 2006.

On February 26, 2008, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) attempted to bring the “Presidential Library Donation Reform Act” (H.R. 1254) to the Senate floor under unanimous consent. However, Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) objected to consideration of the bill unless an amendment was adopted applying the disclosure requirements to administrations serving on or after January 21, 2009. The effect would be to exempt President George W. Bush from the more stringent reporting rules that cover library funding for the current and future presidents under the bill.

The only Magna Carta permanently in the United States will return to public display in the West Rotunda Gallery of the National Archives beginning Wednesday, March 12, 2008. The Magna Carta had been on display at the National Archives on loan from H. Ross Perot for more than 20 years. Last fall, Perot took back the copy and put it up for auction. In December 2007, it was purchased by financier David M. Rubenstein for $21.3 million. He has put the document on “permanent loan” to the National Archives. Only four originals of the 1297 Magna Carta remain.