National Coalition for History

On February 1, President Obama sent to Congress a proposed Fiscal Year 2011 budget request of $460.2 million for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The requested amount for NARA is a two percent decrease of $9.6 million from the FY 2010 appropriated funding levels of $469.8 million. The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) would receive $10 million in grant funding, a $3 million cut from FY 2010. Read the full article »

On February 1, President Obama asked Congress for $161.3 million to fund the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for FY 2011, a $6.2 million cut from the FY 10 appropriated level of $167.5 million. Read the full article »

On February 1, President Obama submitted to Congress his proposed fiscal year 2011 budget for the National Park Service. History-related programs were particularly hard hit with the proposed elimination of two preservation programs (Save America’s Treasures and Preserve America) and a 50 percent cut in Heritage Partnership programs. Read the full article »

The President’s fiscal year 2011 budget request to Congress for the Smithsonian is $797.6 million, an increase of $36 million from the $761.4 million appropriated to the Institution in FY 2010. The Salaries and Expenses budget request for FY 2011 is $660.8 million and the Facilities Capital budget is $136.8 million. Read the full article »

On February 1, President Obama transmitted to Congress a fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget request of $265.8 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The president’s request is the same as the FY 2010 enacted levels for the Institute’s programs and administration. Read the full article »

On January 13, 2010, the House of Representatives approved a bill (S. 692) to facilitate the donation of the papers of Grace Tully, personal secretary to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to the National Archives. President Obama is expected to sign the bill shortly. Read the full article »

Two historians have recently been appointed to prominent positions in Washington. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced that historian Adele Alexander is joining the National Council on the Humanities. In addition, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed William Roger Louis, historian from the University of Texas at Austin, to the John W. Kluge Center Chair. Read the full article »

On January 11, 2010, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum opened approximately 280,000 pages of textual materials, 12 hours of sound recordings, and 7,000 images from the personal collection of White House photographer Oliver F. Atkins (“Ollie”) at the National Archives College Park, MD, facility and at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, CA. Read the full article »

On December 29, President Obama issued a new executive order (EO 13526) that would dramatically change the way the executive branch handles classified material, reduce over-classification and expedite the release of formerly classified materials to the public. Federal agencies would be required to eliminate a 400 million page backlog of materials awaiting declassifcation by December 31, 2013. Read the full article »

On December 30, the Obama administration released more than 25,000 records identifying visitors to the White House over the last two weeks of September. President Obama ordered earlier this year that in December the White House would — for the first time in history — begin posting White House visitor records on a monthly basis. The records also include visitor information for the Vice President and his staff at the White House Complex. Read the full article »