The Ohio Historical Records Advisory Board (OHRAB) urgently seeks your help in contacting Congress to support the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).  The President’s FY2018 budget, released May 23, included no funding for the NHPRC, eliminating the commission.  The process has now moved to Congress where House Appropriations Committee subcommittees will be drafting their spending bills by the end of June.

Since 1976, the NHPRC has awarded $1.5 million in grant funding to 50 projects across Ohio to establish archival programs, preserve documents and digitize and make accessible records (a list of projects funded by the NHPRC is available at https://www.archives.gov/nhprc/projects).   The NHPRC also funds OHRAB and its activities.  This includes an annual regrant program that preserves and provides access to Ohio’s historical records.  Since 2011, 73 projects have been funded under this program.  In addition, funding from the NHPRC provided electronic records management training to hundreds of Ohioans, helping to ensure that tomorrow’s records will also be preserved.

What can you do?  Please contact your representative and share how the NHPRC has benefited your district or Ohio.  You can find your representative here: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/.

The National Humanities Alliance has created a legislative action center that allows you to email Congress about NHPRC funding (http://p2a.co/kLlz8Vr). The website includes a pre-written letter that you can personalize or send as is. The system uses your zip code to identify your House member and Senators automatically.

Legislators are interested to know what programs are important to their constituents. Please let them know how valuable NHPRC and OHRAB have been to your institution and to the public you serve.