This message is from Gayathri Kher, an information technology specalist for the National Genealogical Society (NGS). I have forwarded it so you may consider supporting this important legislation. You may find your House of Representative and send a message from this website:
http://www.house.gov/
Thank you,
Pam Warren
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Two years ago I served on a panel to study and analyze the current conditions of records preservation at the state and local level. One of the initiatives resulting from the State Archivists' study, is a new bill in the House of Representatives requesting an additional $50 million annually to increase federal support for state and local archival records held by government agencies, historical societies, libraries and related organizations. If approved, the funds will be distributed by the National Archives and each state will receive a portion of these funds for redistribution to organizations within its borders. The Preserving American Historical Records (PAHR) bill is being sponsored by Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Chris Cannon (R-UT) and this week they are asking other members of Congress to join in the sponsorship of this bill.
Now you can become involved in helping preserve local and state archival records. Please contact your representative in the House by 10 May and ask him/her to sign on to the sponsorship of PAHR "The Preserving American Historical Records Act." Let your representative know how important access to state and local archival records are to you.
NGS will keep you advised of the progress of this bill over the coming months. We will ask you to contact your representatives again before the bill comes to a vote. You will find more details about PAHR at the Records Preservation and Access Committee (RPAC) website at www.fgs.org/rpac.
RPAC, which is a joint committee of FGS and NGS, has been working on a brochure on records access and preservation which should be available for distribution this summer for you to send to your representatives in Congress. NGS will let you know when the brochure is available.
You can also find more details about the Preserving American Historical Records Act on the PAHR page of the Society of American Archivists website: http://www.archivists.org/pahr/.
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