On July 12, the Senate passed legislation (S. 2872) to reauthorize the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) at a $10 million level for fiscal years 2010–2014. Unfortunately, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has yet to schedule a markup of a bill (H.R. 5616) to reauthorize the NHPRC at a $20 million level for fiscal years 2011–2015.
On July 1, 276 American historians sent a letter to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board in opposition to a proposal to license a casino located one-half mile from the Gettysburg National Military Park. Beyond the individual signatories, the American Historical Association, National Coalition for History, National Council on Public History, Organization of American Historians, Society for Military History and Southern Historical Association sent a separate letter of opposition to the Gaming Board.
On June 28, the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), issued a Directive in the Federal Register providing guidance to federal agencies on how to implement Executive Order 13526 relating to classified national security information. President Obama issued the EO on December 29, 2009.
On June 28, the Obama administration issued directives mandating a comprehensive review of all federal information technology (IT) projects that are “high risk” and placed a freeze on all financial systems modernization projects.
On July 2, the National Archives Richard Nixon Presidential Library released nearly 100,000 pages of Presidential records and 80 hours of video oral histories. Selected materials are available online at: https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/.
The total security classification cost estimate within the Federal government for Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 is $8.81 billion. This figure represents estimates provided by 41 executive branch agencies, including the Department of Defense (DoD). The total security classification costs for Executive branch agencies increased $176.65 million in FY 2009, an increase of 2 percent from FY 2008.
Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) was recently named as the new Co-Chair of the Senate Cultural Caucus. She joins Senator Michael Enzi (R-WY) who has Co-Chaired the caucus since its founding in 2005. The list of Senate Cultural Caucus members is available here.
Recent hyperspectral imaging of Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence has clearly confirmed past speculation that Jefferson made an interesting word correction during his writing of the document, according to scientists in the Library of Congress’ Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD). Jefferson originally had written the phrase “our fellow subjects.” But he apparently changed his mind. Heavily scrawled over the word “subjects” was an alternative, the word “citizens.”
On June 30, Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero announced that the only original Magna Carta on display in the United States will have a new $322,800 state-of-the-art encasement and will be featured in a new exhibition gallery at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. The 1297 Magna Carta is on loan to the National Archives from David Rubenstein, Co-Founder of the Carlyle Group as a gift to the American people.
