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Vol. 25:1 ISSN 0160-8460 April 1997
From the Executive Director
Small Program, Big Impact
Here's one more way in which the NHPRC makes a lot of things happen with very little money. Consider the following:In Alabama, record keepers in Mobile have microfilmed colonial records from the eighteenth century, and the Birmingham Public Library has processed its collection on the Civil Rights Movement. In Florida, a research organization has conserved films of wildlife from the mid-twentieth century, and the Seminole tribe has surveyed records on four reservations. In New York, Hunter College has surveyed Puerto Rican records, and the New York Public Library has opened collections illuminating the history of theater and dance. The City of Louisville has organized records of its Urban Renewal and Community Development programs, and Milwaukee County has inventoried public works and development records. The Historic Charleston Foundation has undertaken a collections inventory, and the Bates Museum in Maine has preserved early photographs and glass slides. A dozen colleges and universities in Pennsylvania have developed archival programs for institutional records of historical value, and Hawaii has surveyed the records of some 200 ethnic organizations. And Virginia has conducted workshops to help organizations protect their records from disasters natural and man-made.
Has all this been done with NHPRC grants? No, this and a lot more has or is being done with NHPRC "regrants."
That is, such work is under way through the NHPRC's partnership with State Historical Records Advisory Boards, with which we jointly finance programs that bring people
together to meet documentary needs, build the nation's archival infrastructure, help a great range of nonprofit institutions, and save many kinds of historical records for many kinds of users. In this partnership, NHPRC grants funds to State Historical Records Advisory Boards for regranting for documentary projects within the states, in accordance with priorities in state plans. Over the past decade, NHPRC funds totaling less than $2.75 million have been regranted through 21 programs in 17 states, which have contributed more than an equal amount in non-federal funds, including special appropriations from state legislatures. In these programs, NHPRC regrants have helped finance 483 documentary projects, 42 training programs reaching 1,576 individuals, and the development of 74 archival and records management programs.
That's a lot of outcome for the money. And many historical records are in much less jeopardy because of it.
(Photo by Philip B. George) -- Gerald George
