U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

70–057 DTP WASHINGTON : 2001

REAUTHORIZATION FOR THE NATIONAL

HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDS

COMMISSION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 4, 2000

Serial No. 106–185

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

LISA SMITH ARAFUNE, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

JIM TURNER, Texas

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. RUSSELL GEORGE, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

HEATHER BAILEY, Professional Staff Member

BRYAN SISK, Clerk

DAVID MCMILLEN, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on April 4, 2000 ................................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Blunt, Hon. Roy, a Representative in Congress from the State of Missouri ............................................................................................................... 41

Carlin, John, Archivist, National Archives and Records Administration .... 2

Cullen, Charles T., president, Newberry Library .......................................... 22

Gilliland-Swetland, Anne, assistant professor, Department of Information

Studies, University of California at Los Angeles ....................................... 30

Newhall, Ann C., Executive Director, National Historical Publications

and Records Commission .............................................................................. 8

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Blunt, Hon. Roy, a Representative in Congress from the State of Missouri, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 43

Carlin, John, Archivist, National Archives and Records Administration,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 4

Cullen, Charles T., president, Newberry Library, prepared statement of ... 24

Gilliland-Swetland, Anne, assistant professor, Department of Information

Studies, University of California at Los Angeles, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 32

Newhall, Ann C., Executive Director, National Historical Publications

and Records Commission, prepared statement of ...................................... 10

Turner, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 66

(1)

REAUTHORIZATION FOR THE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDS

COMMISSION

TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:03 p.m., in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Horn, Biggert, and Turner.

Staff present: Heather Bailey, professional staff member; Bryan

Sisk, clerk; Trey Henderson, minority counsel; David McMillen, minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. HORN. The hearing of the Government Management, Information, and Technology Subcommittee will come to order.

Since its formation in 1934, the National Historical Publications

and Records Commission has contributed significantly to the Nation’s effort to preserve its historic documents. In 1964, the Commission, affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration, began funding independent archival projects through its

grants program.

These awards are given to projects that help preserve records of

non-Federal entities, including State, county, municipal, and tribal

governments. The Commission also funds archival projects involving family papers, manuscripts and business records, including engineering drawings, motion pictures, and electronic records.

The Commission has been instrumental in preserving the historical works of such great American leaders as George Washington,

John Adams, Henry Clay, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

In November 1999, the Commission awarded grants for 64

projects totaling $3 million. In addition, it proposed funding a 3-

year, $1.8 million initiative to help raise the level of archival expertise in the rapidly changing area of electronic recordkeeping.

As National Archive’s grantmaking arm, the Commission continues to provide an invaluable service to the Nation and to the maintenance of its history. Our witnesses today will discuss the Commission’s many successes and the challenges that lie ahead. I welcome each one of you and I look forward to your testimony.

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We have for today one panel, so I think I will swear you all in

at once and any assistants that are going to buzz in your ear, get

them to raise their right hand also. We have three assistants, four

speakers, seven all told.

Do you affirm that the testimony you are about to give this subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.]

Mr. HORN. All seven nodded or affirmed. So the clerk will note

that.

We are delighted to start with the distinguished Archivist of the

United States, the Honorable John Carlin, Archivist, National Archives and Records Administration. Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF JOHN CARLIN, ARCHIVIST, NATIONAL

ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION

Mr. CARLIN. Chairman Horn, members of the committee, staff,

thank you very much for this opportunity to testify in support of

the reauthorization of the National Historic Publications and

Records Commission.

Ann Newhall, the Executive Director of NHPRC, will provide a

detailed description of the Commission’s activities and plans. I

would like simply to explain overall why the work of this relatively

small program greatly matters.

When I became Archivist of the United States, I learned to my

surprise that I was also the Chair of the NHPRC. The Congress,

as you indicated, created the National Archives and the NHPRC in

the same legislation, which directed as the head of the National Archives, Chair the Commission and provided for the NHPRC to be

administered within NARA and provided for the NHPRC to be administered within NARA which it has been ever since.

Why? Because Congress recognized that the job of preserving

this Nation’s records required two national archives. One is today’s

National Archives and Records Administration which safeguards

records of all three branches of the Federal Government. The other

National Archives safeguards non-Federal records and consists of

the combined holdings of the State and local archives, the university archivable and manuscript collections, and the documentary

collections of libraries, historical societies and other cultural repositories, private and public.

As you well know, American history did not happen just in

Washington. It has unfolded in every State and locality through

private actions as well as those of the government. Unless we safeguard historical records widely, there will be gaping holes in our

Nation’s history.

It is not only history that we lose. Rights and entitlements of

citizens depend on their ability to document their citizenship. I

may live in the State of Maryland, but my citizenship may be documented by a birth certificate in a locality in Kansas or by a court

decree in California, or by an INS record in Washington. Records

created and maintained within each State are to individuals and

institutions nationwide. Records everywhere are necessary for the

credibility and accountability of institutions in a democracy, not

just national institutions such as the White House and the Congress, but government institutions at all levels, as well as organizaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:56 Mar 26, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\70057.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tions in the private sector that have a great impact on American

life.

The NPRC exists to stimulate the care and use of records that

are beyond NARA’s jurisdiction. It does that by encouraging documentary work outside the Federal Government with small grants

to archivable, historical and cultural organizations throughout our

country. Such records are needed even to document the Federal

Government.

I understand this because when I was Governor of Kansas, I became well aware that many Federal programs were carried out at

the State and local levels. Therefore, safeguarding records at those

levels is necessary for the documentation of many Federal programs.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that you too understand from a personal

experience the need for documentary work far beyond Washington.

I understand in writing your own books you have used materials

in State archives as well as the National Archives and, in fact, you

created an archivable program at the California State University

at Long Beach.

You know even better than I that often an important work of

scholarship will depend on resources reserved in multiple institutions. Through grants, working with State advisory boards, and

through contributing to funding partnerships, NHPRC plays a critical role in promoting work to ensure that records of many kinds

in many parts of the country will be safe and accessible for scholars

and others who need them. As Archivist of the United States, as

chairman of the Commission, and as a citizen concerned about

rights, accountability, and history, I strongly request that NHPRC

be reauthorized to carry on its important work.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Carlin follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much for that summary.

I might add for all of you who have not been here before, the

minute we introduce you, your resume goes in, your full testimony

goes in and we would like you to summarize it because we have

read the testimony. I did have the chance last night. So we would

appreciate that if you would just put the high points orally so we

will have more time for questions and answers.

Our next presenter is Ms. Ann C. Newhall, Executive Director,

National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Please

proceed.

STATEMENT OF ANN C. NEWHALL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDS COMMISSION

Ms. NEWHALL. Mr. Chairman, I wish to join with Archivist Carlin in thanking you for your sponsorship of the legislation to reauthorize the NHPRC. We are very grateful as well, to Representatives Turner, Blunt, and other co-sponsors for their support.

On behalf of the Commission, I want to thank you very much for

this opportunity to speak about the NHPRC which is probably one

of the least known organizations within the Federal Government

but I happen to think one of the best.

I also would like to quickly thank a member of your staff. Heather Bailey has been most helpful in helping me prepare for this, my

first experience in such an arena.

Mr. HORN. Thank you.

Ms. NEWHALL. The NHPRC’s statutory mission is to ensure an

understanding of our Nation’s past by promoting nationwide the

identification, preservation, and dissemination of essential historical documentation. The Commission is chaired by the Archivist of

the United States and our offices are located in Washington, DC.

Our mandate is to look outward, to provide assistance to nonFederal agencies, associations, institutions, and individuals who

are committed to the preservation and use of America’s documentary resources. As such, the NHPRC is the only national

grantmaking organization whose only focus is the American documentary record, whatever its format, whether it was created with

a quill pen or on a computer, or anything in between.

Through its competitive grants, the NHPRC provides a kind of

venture capital for the historical and archival world. Under our

strategic plan, the NHPRC has three goals, three equal strategic

goals. The first refers to the partial support we give for the publication of eight projects collectively known as the founding fathers or

the founding era. This is to produce documentary editions of the

papers of George Washington, John Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas

Jefferson, James Madison, papers that document the ratification of

the Constitution, the First Federal Congress, and the early Supreme Court.

This is a time of diminishing resources for documentary editions

but the NHPRC continues to recognize the inherent value in bringing together related documents, sometimes from archivable repositories all around the world, professionally authenticating them,

transcribing them and through annotation, further enhancing the

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reader’s understanding of the context in which the documents were

created.

Today, the Internet and other communications breakthroughs

have made it possible for Americans of every age to encounter more

and more and more information, but what is lacking and what will

become ever more valuable as we move forward is authentication

and context. These are provided by the documentary editions which

are supported by the NHPRC.

Our second goal refers to our collaboration with State historical

records advisory boards to strengthen the Nation’s archivable infrastructure and to expand the range of records that are protected and

accessible. I will skip for the moment this material to go on to our

third goal.

Our third goal is to help archivists, documentary editors, and

records managers overcome obstacles and take advantage of the opportunities posed by electronic technologies and to provide leadership, funding research, development on appraising, preserving, disseminating, and providing access to important documentary

sources in electronic form.

Because the technology needed to access electronically created

documentation becomes obsolete in a matter of years, this goal

sums what is, without question, the greatest challenge facing the

archivable world today—how to identify, preserve, and provide

long-term access to electronic records having enduring historic

value.

I should stress that the NHPRC devotes its support to records

originally created in electronic form. In recent years, we have been

much more aggressive and imaginative, I think, in funding several

projects which Anne Gilliland-Swetland will describe today. We are

also initiating the initiative that you mentioned to raise archivable

expertise in the area of electronic records.

Much has been done but there are many challenges remaining in

the electronic records area. It will be some time before and considerable work will be required before most non-Federal archivable institutions will be in position to handle comfortably, capably and as

a matter of course, the long-term retention of and easy access to

historically valuable electronic records.

NHPRC works very hard to provide vigorous, effective and imaginative leadership and at the same time to be open to the ideas and

ingenuity of this Nation’s archivists and historians and documentary editors and all those who care about American history.

We are grateful to you for this opportunity to talk about what

we are and what we do. We ask that the National Historical Publications and Records Commission be reauthorized so that it might

continue in this significant, noble, and enduring endeavor.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Newhall follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much.

We are delighted to see Charles T. Cullen as president of the

Newberry Library. It is one of the world’s great depositories of rare

books and manuscripts. The reputation of the library precedes you.

I am sure you are nursing it along to even greater heights.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES T. CULLEN, PRESIDENT, NEWBERRY

LIBRARY

Mr. CULLEN. Thank you, sir. I am delighted to be here today.

I thought I might mention that I have come in this noontime and

I will leave immediately after to go back to Chicago. I have done

that primarily because of the importance I attach to the reauthorization of the NHPRC, so that I was prepared to change my schedule to come and appear before you today.

I am enjoying the present position as the head of the Newberry

Library in Chicago but I came to it 14 years ago after spending

some period of time as an editor of some of these editions. Twentyfive years ago I was the editor of the papers of John Marshall and

for a period in the 1980’s, I was editor of the papers of Thomas Jefferson. So I speak from experience as an editor and a historian who

has worked with these materials both as a scholar, as a user, and

now as head of a research library that is very heavily used by

teachers at all levels and one that is open to the public. I see people from the public—school teachers and people who are not engaged in any particular remunerative exercises coming and using

these materials to learn more about our Nation’s history.

Last Friday, for example, the recently retired CEO of one of our

Nation’s leading electronics companies was in the Newberry Library to learn more about the effects of the Scottish enlightenment

on the ideas of the founding fathers. He was using some of these

materials that the NHPRC has made available.

Such interest is much more widespread, I believe, than many of

us realize, more widespread among the general public. I also participated last week in a colloquium down in Florida. A group of retired people, about 50 of them, came together once a week for a

month to study the Declaration of Independence and the ideas that

contributed to it.

There was heated discussion about the meaning of the Declaration and the ideas that we find in the papers of the founding fathers so that they can study them and see what was really

thought. That was what they wanted to know, what was the truth

and what the facts were. These materials make it available and I

think the availability in the original state, or at least in original

source materials, is of fundamental importance in a democratic society.

The NHPRC provides seed money for more than 40 projects

working to make significant American documents accessible to everyone who can read in print and increasingly in electronic form

so that accessibility has spread worldwide. Slightly more than $2

million per year attracts much more money from sponsors drawn

to this work by its initial endorsement and continuing support from

the NHPRC.

The Commission’s grants program is a highly successful

leverager. The results have been very impressive. Over 700 volVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:56 Mar 26, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\70057.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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umes and almost 10,000 rolls of microfilm now are available from

these NHPRC-sponsored projects to inform those who are interested in our Nation’s history.

They have revolutionized the study of American history. One of

the Nation’s leading historians has called this work the most important and lasting work of the 20th century, the most important

work in American history of the 20th century.

Others have used these materials to write monograms. Stephen

Ambrose’s ‘‘Undaunted Courage’’ couldn’t have been written without the publication of the NHPRC-sponsored project to publish the

journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. TV documentaries depend heavily on these. Ken Burns has told me himself that he

couldn’t have done three of his projects without the editors supported by the NHPRC.

With NHPRC help, projects have shared information and skills

among each other to take advantage of improvements in technology

and in ways of disseminating these important materials. They have

served as resources for our Government, for the press, and for civic

groups in addition to scholars and interested citizens.

In sum, this small government agency is a mouse that roars. It

is one of the biggest bargains in the U.S. Government budget it

seems to me. I urge its continuation through congressional reauthorization and I thank you again for giving me a chance to express these widespread sentiments. I would be glad to answer any

questions when the time comes.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cullen follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much, Mr. Cullen. We appreciate

that.

Our last presenter is Anne Gilliland-Swetland, assistant professor, Department of Information Studies, University of California at

Los Angeles. Glad to have you here.

STATEMENT OF ANNE GILLILAND-SWETLAND, ASSISTANT

PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES

Ms. GILLILAND-SWETLAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for inviting me here this afternoon to present testimony with regard to the National Historical Publications and

Records Commission efforts to preserve historical documents and

electronic records, and to support the bill to reauthorize the Commission.

While the implementation of electronic recordkeeping technologies is fundamental to activities such as electronic commerce,

electronic government, and academic and industry research, it also

presents society today with one of its greatest technological challenges, how to guarantee the long-term preservation, trustworthiness and accessibility of vast quantities of electronic records

in the face of continual and rapid obsolescence of computer hardware and software, vulnerable and impermanent storage media,

and manipulable electronic systems.

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission is

the only national funding agency that is directly addressing the

challenges posed for recordkeeping and records preservation. With

the articulation and implementation over the past 9 years of its vitally important electronic records research agenda, the Commission

has singlehandedly been responsible for most of the knowledge

gains and development activities that have occurred in the United

States in this area in the past decade.

This agenda has resulted in concrete outcomes such as the development of model electronic records programs as well as sets of

functional requirements, mathematical-data schema, best practices,

and industry standards for electronic recordkeeping.

I want to briefly discuss two NHPRC-funded projects currently

underway. These projects exemplify not only the extensive and

complex nature of research and development to date in the area of

electronic records that has been funded by the Commission, they

also exemplify how the Commission has worked to ensure interaction between complementary projects, the relevance of its agenda

to a range of research communities, and its ability to facilitate

projects that strategically leverage additional funding sources.

Without the Commission’s electronic research agenda and its funding program, such research simply would not be possible.

In June 1999, the NHPRC funded American researchers to participate in the International Project on Permanent Authentic

Records and Electronic Systems, known as InterPARES. This year,

the Commission funded the San Diego Supercomputer Center’s

methodologies for the long-term preservation of and access to software-dependent electronic records project.

The two projects are working closely together because of the

interdependent nature of their research. InterPARES is generating

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theoretical, technical, policy, and educational requirements for the

preservation of authentic records based on an analysis of records

in a wide range of organizational and jurisdictional settings.

The SDSC project is designing information architectures that

will buildupon these requirements and that will be scalable to situations other than very large archivable repositories such as the National Archives and Records Administration.

InterPARES brings together an interdisciplinary team of researchers and an industry group representing the global biocomputer and pharmaceutical industries, together with the National

Archives and several countries in North America, Europe, Asia,

and Australia.

In addition to funding from NHPRC, major funding for

InterPARES has also been made by Canada’s Social Science and

Humanities Research Council and the Italian National Research

Council.

The San Diego Supercomputer Center is the leading edge facility

for the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure. SDSC’s project builds upon its experience working with

the National Archives on the ongoing NARA/DOCT Electronic

Records Management Project. The NHPRC funded project will

allow SDS researchers to take what they have learned from working with NARA as well as from the work of InterPARES and other

recent and ongoing NHPRC-funded projects and develop and test

prototypes and tools for preserving and making accessible softwaredependent records in ways scaled to the needs and resources of different kind of institutions such as State and local governments and

universities.

Important and exciting as these projects and others currently underway are, they address only certain key issues and there remains

an immensely important role for NHPRC to play with regard to

furthering research and development in the area of electronic

records management and preservation.

I would like therefore wholeheartedly to support the reorganization of the Commission.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Gilliland-Swetland follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you. At this point, we will begin questioning.

Mr. Blunt has not made it here. He is probably in a hearing just

as we have been.

I will now yield for 5 minutes to the vice chair, Ms. Biggert, the

gentlewoman from Illinois, for questioning the witnesses.

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you.

This is for Mr. Carlin and Ms. Newhall. What are some of the

biggest challenges that face the Commission in the next few years?

That is a pretty broad question.

Mr. CARLIN. One that quickly comes to mind obviously deals with

what we have shared here today and that is the challenge of electronic records for a whole long list of reasons. You have heard testimony on a great deal of the detail but the bottom line, in a practical way, is that unless we can continue the work being done dealing with electronic records and all that remains, there are going to

be huge record gaps in our documentation of what has gone on. I

fear the gaps exist already. I am just hoping the work we are proceeding on can allow us to limit that gap as much as possible and

proceed toward the kind of recordkeeping we need for accountability in government, for the protection of individual rights and yes,

ultimately a history.

Ms. BIGGERT. If you have documents on the Internet, for example, how accessible will those be for both users of the Internet but

also non-users of the Internet?

Mr. CARLIN. We certainly intend to make maximum use of the

Internet to communicate. I think back to my tenure of 5 years, and

5 years ago we didn’t talk much about Websites and their importance to reach out and make contact. Today it is a necessity for us

to communicate the progress we are making both internally as far

as the Federal Government in many ways this research will impact

as well as for State and local government and the private sector.

Communicating through Websites is absolutely essential to make

sure we are reaching out so that the investment that is made gets

maximum return to the benefit of anyone who can make use of the

progress.

Ms. NEWHALL. I think another challenge, an enormous one facing

NHPRC and the archival world is the question of continuing education for archivists. Being an archivist requires a lot of very specialized knowledge. You have to know a lot about history, a lot

about library techniques specifically oriented toward handling millions of individual pieces of paper as opposed to bound volumes, a

lot about the chemical aspect of the deterioration of papers, a lot

about electronic records, and a fair amount of law. These develop

according to the type of collection you are working with and it

changes, you don’t know it all when you graduate from graduate

school.

This is a particularly worrisome situation for us because the

archivable world has been pretty top heavy with baby boomers. As

they begin to retire, we see there is a lot of professionals who have

been kept in mid-level positions in a lot of archivable institutions

who are now going to be wanting to move up. They will require

more and different kinds of perhaps management training than

they have had in order to head large organizations. Once they get

the position, they are going to have specialized knowledge they

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need. This is one of our areas of real concern now, continuing education for archivists.

We also are looking at restructuring or looking at the concerns

of how we can most efficaciously speed up the work of some of the

documentary editions.

Ms. BIGGERT. Mr. Cullen, I am also from Illinois, so I am very

proud of being in the State where your library is located. It is a

wonderful monument in Chicago and we are very proud to have

that there.

Can you tell me what the future for printed editions is? We seem

to be looking ahead to the electronic documentation. Will printed

editions be growing or shrinking with the onset of electronic publishing?

Mr. CULLEN. It is impossible to say that people are going to use

printed editions in the future as much as they have in the past because there will be this other accessibility. My experience is and

most of my colleagues see happening having things available in

electronic form is increasing the use of other materials, bringing

more people to libraries to dig further.

I think the future of these editions is good, at least their use is

good. Many are midway or near finishing their printed editions.

There are people who if they are looking for one reference, they

would find electronic accessibility more desirable.

If they want to read and explore, as I mentioned this retired

CEO was Friday, and see what comes from the material, they preferred the printed version. There will always be, I think, the need

for print on paper, as well as putting this material on the Internet

for those who have access to it that way and prefer that.

The work has to be done. You have to take the documents you

are trying to edit and whether they have to be sent to a printer

to be put on paper or filed on a Website someplace, the work is already done. How they are disseminated doesn’t matter a great deal

to the editor. Whoever will use it or how they want it is what is

sought.

Mr. HORN. We will have another round. I see Mr. Blunt is here

and Members are busy, so Mr. Blunt, feel free to make your statement or if you can stay with us, we would love to have you.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROY BLUNT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI

Mr. BLUNT. I don’t think I can stay, Mr. Chairman, but I am

pleased to be here to advocate the renewal of the National Historic

Publications and Records Commission. I have submitted testimony

for the record that I will briefly summarize.

I was pleased with the testimony I was able to put together because I have had some substantial personal experience with

NHPRC. One of those experiences is having served for the last two

Congresses as the Member of the House on the Board that determines the allocation of those resources allocated through grants.

That board includes myself, one Member of the Senate, one member of the Supreme Court, the Librarian of Congress, the Archivist

of the United States, and a number of individuals from the historic

community. Those resources are allocated, many through that

board after careful review.

42

There are a number of different ways NHPRC has worked. I

mention those in my testimony. Some specifically go back to the

two terms I served as the Secretary of State in Missouri where the

State archives and the records responsibility for State and local

government was part of the Secretary of State’s office.

In the last 20 years as I mention in my testimony, NHPRC has

awarded more than 25 grants totaling $800,000 just within the

State of Missouri. One project was one I visited not too long ago

the Southwest Missouri Labor Records Project, a number of records

that otherwise would not have been saved, would not have been

seen in the part of the State I represent if it hadn’t been for the

preservation of those documents to really tell the story of the labor

movement in southwest Missouri and the impact it had on the development of the community.

When I was Secretary of State, the NHPRC allowed the State

Records Board, through a grant, to do a statewide survey of the options before State and local government to help preserve records.

As an offshoot of that project, we put in place a model local records

program for the country. The State of Missouri through a fee collected with recorded documents in courthouses has given over $3

million in grants to over 600 grantees since 1992, all as a result

of that $25,000 investment made by NHPRC. So $25,000 from

NHPRC turned out to be over $3 million to date invested in over

600 different projects.

As the States, as part of those projects, work with local governments, documents that weren’t known to be in existence have been

uncovered and publicly shared. There were documents related to

Merriweather-Lewis, to William Clark, to both Frank and Jesse

James, the first known short biography of Harry Truman written

as part of a court case he was a party to as a young man still farming in Grandview, MO, none of which were known to be in existence until they were discovered as part of projects that related out

of those grants that were initiated because of a very small investment at the Federal level.

In my testimony I have suggested a number of different experiences in States. As I look through my testimony, neither Illinois or

California are listed but I am sure that is an oversight and there

have been in Florida, Minnesota, Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan

and Vermont specific initiatives that were created because of the

NHPRC efforts. This is the place where the Federal Government,

with very little money, has been able to encourage significant efforts in retaining and preserving our history, both at the government level and the third area that really has just begun to blossom

in recent years, the area where these grants have been made more

available to nongovernmental groups who because of the determination at the Commission level were thought to have a significant repository like the Ozarks labor union records, the southwest

Missouri labor union records, of our history, our culture, our development as a country.

Certainly I am hopeful that your committee, as I believe it will,

provides the leadership to take this legislation to the floor, get it

passed and continue this worthwhile program.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Roy Blunt follows:]

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44

45

46

47

48

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much for that excellent statement. I

was fascinated when I read last night about the discovery of those

labor papers in the Ozarks, economic development and this kind of

thing that comes from it.

Were they involved in political organization also?

Mr. BLUNT. They certainly were and they were involved in some

pretty heated strikes, including a major streetcar strike. All of

those records would have been lost. They were literally in a situation where they had been salvaged one time on the way to the

trash pile and were being saved by a person who just realized they

had great potential. In the storage space he had available, there is

no way they would have survived that individual’s life if this program hadn’t made it possible to reach out and categorize those

records. They will be available at Southwest Missouri State University from now on as an important part of the heritage of both the

labor movement and certainly as it related to our part of the State.

Mr. HORN. That is great progress.

Mr. BLUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Thank you.

Let us continue some of the questioning between Ms. Biggert and

myself.

Mr. Carlin, what are some of the collaborative projects being

worked by both the Commission and the National Archives?

Mr. CARLIN. The principal area would be in the electronic records

field. We have a huge interest and involvement, for example, with

the San Diego Supercomputer Center and other partners in the

Federal Government. The NHPRC plays a key role in two areas,

one in the theoretical aspect of authenticity and then the

scalability with the recent grant that went as well to the San Diego

Center. In that sense, NHPRC has played a very significant role

in a broader challenge that we have as an agency for taking care

of the records of all three branches of the Government.

What we are working on here with the NHPRC being a significant partner is of benefit to the entire world, public and private,

all sizes have wondered and worried for a number of years as technology continued to grow and expand and as new generations of

technology kept coming faster, what were we going to do to provide

access in the future several generations later. The work we are

doing now, not just theoretical but in the applied stage where we

have a comfort level, we now have the answer. We have time to

work on that applied research but we feel we can really respond

to that challenge. NHPRC has played a significant role in that

overall effort.

Mr. HORN. What you have in electronic records, is that subject

to hackers crashing into it, changing things around?

Mr. CARLIN. I think everyone involved with electronic records has

been concerned about security. Certainly one of the challenges we

face and other panelists I believe can speak more specifically to

that, when we talk about authenticity, when we talk about the reliability of that record, we are talking about avoiding hackers being

able to go in and change that record in any way, shape, or form

at whatever stage.

As this overall project develops, I can assure you the aspect to

which you refer and question is a key part of how we proceed. For

49

us as archivists, it goes to the heart of our responsibility. We are

not the only ones concerned about that. The pharmaceutical industry, for example, has been a key partner in all this. They likewise

have long range interests in records, the authenticity and security

of those records.

Mr. HORN. That is an interesting collection. Is that for checking

Presidential health over time or what?

Mr. CARLIN. I think they are more concerned, but I could be corrected, with their formulas, being able to protect themselves 20, 30,

50, 100 years later in the development of progress in the health industry, defend themselves in many cases, but also be able to keep

records for future use and future development, further research

down the road that is depend on what has gone before.

Mr. HORN. Is that the pharmacist group that has that wonderful

little building at the end of Constitution Avenue?

Mr. CARLIN. I am not aware of that direct connection.

Mr. HORN. The story is that is the tomb of the unknown pharmacist. It looks very much like the one at Fort Myer. [Laughter.]

I have been fascinated by that since I was a little boy and I think

the doors are open and one of these days I am going to go in and

see what is in there.

Mr. CARLIN. You might find the pharmacist that is working on

this project. With the Internet and e-mail, you never know where

the person is.

Mr. HORN. Let me ask you about the 42,000 disks that had a little disturbance these last few weeks. What have we found at this

point?

Mr. CARLIN. The 43,000 to which you make reference goes back

to last summer over a weekend in which one of the backup responsibilities was not carried out by a contractor. What we have

learned is that in this particular case a little more redundancy is

valuable and that you cannot be over confident that everything is

secure without a great deal of redundancy built into the system so

that you back up the backups to make sure if there is a situation

and there will be a loss. There will be deletions, breakdowns, electrical problems, and so forth but the key is making sure you have

backup systems that protect those records.

Mr. HORN. Do we know what was on those records? Where did

they come from? Who deposited them?

Mr. CARLIN. The records were primarily in the archivist’s office

and support staff and 43,000 seems like a lot but it is really very

little considering all of the exchanges that now take place routinely.

Because of our system of printing out and not depending on recordkeeping, we are not aware of any loss in terms of actual records.

Certainly it has made us even more aware of the challenge.

Mr. HORN. What do you think caused it? Did someone have a big

magnet in the area or what?

Mr. CARLIN. To be honest, we really don’t know.

Mr. HORN. Whose office were they in, yours or someone else’s?

Mr. CARLIN. No, no.

Mr. HORN. This was in the Maryland facility?

Mr. CARLIN. In the Maryland facility. Nothing happened in terms

of an individual office. It was where the mainframes are, where the

50

contractor works to do the backup on a regular basis that somebody pressed the wrong button or did something of which we’re not

aware at this point exactly what it was.

Mr. HORN. Where did those records come from?

Mr. CARLIN. Records from my staff to myself, from myself to my

deputy, routine conversations during the day that would take place

that we use e-mail for.

Mr. HORN. There were roughly 42,000 disks?

Mr. CARLIN. No. We are talking individual e-mail messages,

many redundant messages, repeated to many other offices outside

the circle where this particular deletion took place. For example,

any communication my deputy and I had with the general counsel,

would be on this system.

Mr. HORN. You are saying this was strictly archival records from

the U.S. National Archives?

Mr. CARLIN. No. We are talking strictly within our internal operation. It had nothing to do with Federal records we are responsible

for taking care of, only the immediate operational records within

our system. For example, it could have been hypothetically a communication between Mr. Constance and myself reminding me that

the hearing you have set up for July 15 is at 2 p.m.

Mr. HORN. That is within the Archives?

Mr. CARLIN. Yes.

Mr. HORN. Are you saying that is what all these records were,

they were the internal administration of the Archives?

Mr. CARLIN. Yes, absolutely, unequivocally.

Mr. HORN. I take it there were not any White House records

there?

Mr. CARLIN. Absolutely not, no, no.

Mr. HORN. We have one room over, a full committee, including

me, what have these people done because they were playing a lot

of games without question on wiping out. We are looking for what

happened and some of it had to do with the Presidential library,

memos were floating around as to saving some of the e-mail and

some of it was you have a memory problem, get rid of some of the

e-mail. We are just curious enough to want to know what those emails that presumably provided memory were going to do.

Anyway, you are assuring me under oath that there are no White

House records in there?

Mr. CARLIN. Absolutely, unequivocally.

Mr. HORN. In terms of what your Commission does, Ms. Newhall,

what is the typical edition of the books that are under your tutelage? How many copies do you have a publisher publish? Is it 250,

2,500, what is it?

Ms. NEWHALL. More like 700. It also varies according to the edition itself. The first volumes of a set, they will produce more than

Volume 27 of the same person’s papers just because interest slacks

off.

Anything having to do with the Civil War seems to have a greater audience than other periods of time. So they do vary according

to the topic.

Mr. HORN. With the Jefferson papers and others, is that the typical number of copies made?

51

Mr. CARLIN. It is. The importance of these as reference materials

has to be emphasized. They are used in libraries primarily. It takes

a very dedicated Jeffersonian to buy every volume that comes out.

There are now about 28 volumes, plus maybe 5 others the project

has produced.

Most people would expect to go to a library and use them. That

is why the print run is not greater because it goes to libraries and

that is about the number of libraries would buy these.

Mr. HORN. I thought we could get a lot of this done but we are

going to have to recess to vote. Then Ms. Biggert is entitled to at

least 10 minutes of time on her questions. We will recess for about

15 minutes.

[Recess.]

Mr. HORN. The recess is over.

We have Ms. Biggert for questioning for 10 minutes.

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Gilliland-Swetland, have there been similar projects to the

InterPARES in the past and if so, what were the results?

Ms. GILLILAND-SWETLAND. There has never been a project similar to this before, both in terms of the subject of the work and also

the scope and the international dimensions.

Ms. BIGGERT. Did you have any models to look at?

Ms. GILLILAND-SWETLAND. In terms of structuring the research

project, it is structured very similarly to big, collaborative research

projects that have been going on in other areas where technology

is a point of interest, and also facilitators of collaboration.

The content of the research draws upon previous research that

has been done, research done in Canada but also research done in

the United States and Australia, and some in Europe also.

Ms. BIGGERT. Could you tell us the goals you and the Commission have for the InterPARES Project compared to the current

preservation methods that we have today that have been used in

the past?

Ms. GILLILAND-SWETLAND. The focus of InterPARES is specifically on records. The preservation of any digital data is problematic

as we know at the moment, especially if you have to maintain that

data with all its dependencies to the hardware and software that

created it.

When we want to preserve records, we are concerned also about

the evidentiary requirements. It is considerably more difficult to

preserve records than just plain information. Therefore it sets a

very high bar for us to have to jump over.

Our goals are to identify exactly how we can define a record in

this environment. If you want to think about very simple environments we deal with all the time like the World Wide Web, not simple but common. In order to be able to define the boundaries

around any particular Web page, where it begins, where it ends,

what part of it might be a record, we want to be able to come up

with requirements for identifying that. We want to see which

pieces of any record are necessary to be maintained exactly as they

are into the future in order to preserve the authenticity of the

record, to keep its integrity intact.

If it does not have its integrity intact, it is no longer reliable. As

a record, we cannot trust it and therefore, for many purposes, it is

52

useless in the future. We do not understand very well yet what

those requirements are.

Having isolated those requirements, we are then weighing all existing preservation mechanisms to see how many of those requirements are met by an array of preservation strategies available at

the moment to see if any of them satisfy all the needs or whether

some satisfy some of the needs, and then to develop blueprints for

optimal preservation strategies in a variety of settings because

preservation strategies are going to be different in different settings, with different kinds of records.

Ms. BIGGERT. Is there testing being done of all the ways to preserve? We thought our photographs were going to last forever and

probably, looking back, some of the historic photographs taken in

the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, that I have of all my family seem

to have lasted a lot longer than a lot of the kodak pictures I took

of the kids when they were young. Is this something you test in

different environments to make sure these will last?

Ms. GILLILAND-SWETLAND. Testing is done in two places. It is

done by industry that develops the media and the technologies and

there are longevity prognostications that come out. It is not necessarily in the interest of industry to have materials that stay

around forever. Places such as Eastman-Kodak do a lot of this testing themselves and publish their own results.

National archives in several countries have been doing this for

quite a long time. However, what they have looked at more is the

media rather than the records on the media. Right now we are

really interested in a way to maintain the records, those intellectual entities themselves because we know the media is going to

turn over and they will continue to turn over.

Ms. BIGGERT. You envision having to transfer these periodically?

Ms. GILLILAND-SWETLAND. Undoubtedly. This is why the project

NARA is involved in with the SDSC, the San Diego Supercomputing Center, is so important because they are trying to develop ways

they can maintain software-dependent records independent of

media and specific information infrastructures.

Ms. BIGGERT. Ms. Newhall, your current funding request for fis- cal year 2001 is $6 million but the authorized level in the proposed

reauthorization is $10 million. Do you foresee growth to that authorized level and how do you propose planning the growth in the

most responsible way?

Ms. NEWHALL. Just before the November 1999 meeting of the

Commission, the chairman, Mr. Carlin, requested that the NHPRC

develop a plan addressing that very question, determining what

our potential needs would be, working on the assumption that

there would be a requirement of additional funds and how we

would proceed, at what level, to responsibly use those funds.

This plan is to be presented to the chairman at the May meeting

next month. At this point, it is premature for me to speak since

this plan hasn’t been approved by the Commission members. I

think it is safe to say that it would involve utilizing any additional

funds to implement our strategic plan more effectively and more

aggressively.

Ms. BIGGERT. Maybe one other quick question. How has the

Commission kept its employee skills for the new technology? Have

53

you had to bring in new employees to address the new technology

or is everyone up to speed?

Ms. NEWHALL. Yes to both questions. We have a new member of

the staff who is Mr. Mark Conrad who was brought in to fill the

then vacant position of Director, Technology Initiatives. That position has been created and occupied previously, it just happened to

be vacant at the time of my arrival at the Commission. I think we

are very fortunate in having someone with Mark’s both archivable

and technical understanding, and his wonderful ability to work

with grantees, applicants. He is able to talk to people who are rocket scientists as though they are like me and he is able to talk to

me as though I am a rocket scientist. It is very fortunate for us.

At the same time, the rest of the staff, we do work to maintain

basic technical skills, not just having to do with new technology but

to remain up to speed on all the areas we need to know about the

historical and documentary editing and particularly the archivable

fields. There are many changes that occur all the time. We attend

meetings, both to meet with potential and current grantees but

also to learn ourselves from the sessions so we can be knowledgeable assessors of the project proposals that come into us.

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Let me proceed with a whole range of questions. I am

sorry the recess sort of took us off kilter.

What information is put in the Presidential documentary editions

for the founding fathers? Give me an idea. Is it mostly their letters

primarily or newspaper articles that they made when they were

selling the Federalist to the New York Packet so they could educate

the people of New York?

Ms. NEWHALL. Again, I think it varies from one individual to another. The papers that people produce vary just like their personalities. The attempt is to publish what was produced by these individuals. It tends to be heavily on correspondence, if there is any

sort of diary, some news accounts if that is the only source we have

of a particular event, particularly if it has a speech, the words of

the individual.

Mr. HORN. Have you got cartoons of the period?

Ms. NEWHALL. Yes, it can include that. Also, such things as

someone like Washington or Jefferson who was very involved in his

home. There can be very interesting material about the weather,

about agricultural methods in those days. So there is quite a range.

Mr. HORN. Do we need the groundhog anymore after looking at

those documents of the founding fathers?

Ms. NEWHALL. I think we always need the groundhog.

Mr. HORN. I hope so.

Let me get back to the printed editions because I wasn’t quite

clear. Was it 700, 800? I haven’t had a chance to look at those

books; I will after the hearing is over but what are the number of

the volumes in the edition that goes out or is it available?

Ms. NEWHALL. I believe this varies according to the particular

edition. I would like to come back to you with the correct answer.

Mr. HORN. That is fine and without objection, that will be in the

record at this point in a letter.

The reason I asked is I happen to be a collector and I am looking

at rare books from 1789 up and my back was turned, I was busy

54

as President of the University and I didn’t realize one of my mentors, not directly although I did meet the man when I was 10 years

of age, was the great Hiram Warren Johnson, the Senator from

California and much to my surprise one day, I walk into the University library and there is the seven volumes of his correspondence to his children. He wrote them and it is just marvelous.

I immediately phoned the publisher. He only did an edition of

250 of those sets. I have an earlier Senator, John Quincy Adams

and I have 1 of the 250 of those sets. That is the 1830’s, 1840’s and

1850’s. Now is now and I just can’t believe libraries aren’t willing

to put those sets in their collections, let alone the poor individuals

that are similarly interested.

What do you do? It seems to me they all ought to have Jefferson’s and Washington’s papers, and this kind of thing in the good

university library or the good city library. What is your thinking

on that? Have they discussed this, how large an edition ought to

be?

Ms. NEWHALL. Yes but my understanding is that this is the sort

of estimation that is done on the part of the publishers who tend

to be non-profit university presses and this their area of particular

expertise, not mine, I have to say.

Mr. HORN. This was Garland that did the Senator’s papers.

Ms. NEWHALL. We would be happy to put you on our mailing list

for all of our future endeavors.

Mr. HORN. That is fine but what do we have, 3,000 colleges in

this country. In our State, we have 107 community colleges, there

are liberal arts colleges that are very small. They are great public

State universities. Unless somebody is watching all this stuff, the

faculty, often the specialists in American history, it is overwhelming unless you sort of put the heat to them to say I really need this

and I want it on the reserved book room or something.

Ms. NEWHALL. I have been in this position for just about 20

months now and my primary concern besides learning the ropes in

general, was to focus on the questions having to do with electronic

records because I thought they were the most urgent.

We are intending in the coming year to really make a great focus

on the documentary editions. One of my concerns I have been raising with the publishers is the question of not so much the numbers

that were published, although I will now, but about what they do

to market the books. It is my sense that they seem to put considerably less energy and effort into this for later volumes than for the

first one or two of a series.

We have been making an effort to list as many of the editions

as we can through Amazon.com. Also, I have been talking to the

publishers about working harder for greater distribution in the rest

of the world. Also, we have begun talks again with the Department

of State.

Several years ago, for the USIA, whatever the name is now, they

purchased several hundred of our editions, volumes of our editions

to be distributed in libraries and universities in foreign countries.

I think the time is ripe for another round of this and other areas.

As I stated in my written testimony, I feel very strongly that

there is a great interest and need for the kinds of information that

is available in the documentary editions in the rest of the world,

55

in certain areas in particular. This is an area of special interest to

me that I will be pursuing in the coming year.

Mr. HORN. I don’t know how many years ago it was but I remember the marvelous job you did in the archives on the Thomas Jefferson papers that looked like the papers. That is how good it was,

so that students could feel it and see the great hand and all the

rest of it. Have you done any others of those? I think you did the

women’s suffrage, didn’t you, after that?

Mr. CARLIN. Yes, and then we are working on one for the congressional records at the current time.

Mr. HORN. I was very impressed by that. I suggested, this might

have been before your time, that maybe every member sort of like

a West Point cadet, we ought to be able to give them to some high

school or tell you which were the main academic high schools because I would think that would turn a lot of students on about Jefferson, about American history. We frankly have done a lousy job

on American history.

I think of those UCLA professors by the way, they must be absolute idiots in terms of what should be an American textbook. I

don’t know if you are familiar with that one?

Ms. NEWHALL. Yes, I am.

Mr. HORN. I hope someone finally looked at their background or

something. It was nonsense. That would turn kids on. I go to about

100 classes a year in the high schools, the community colleges, and

the university, so I am very sensitive to the materials we need to

get people interested again in our heritage. I thought what you

were doing there was magnificent.

Mr. CARLIN. It is amazing what technology can do in creating a

facsimile copy. To the lay person, it is almost impossible to tell the

difference between the facsimile copy and the original.

Mr. HORN. Can you scan in those now or how do you do that?

Mr. CARLIN. I would not pretend to try to tell you exactly how

that is done but there is a machine and our fine folks in the legislative archives have made the best use of that machine in providing various services to Members of Congress of facsimile copies of

key records.

Mr. HORN. That is great because I remember when I first came

here in 1993. Don Anderson, who knows more about the Capitol

than anybody since Fred Schingle, was here. He had the original

journal of 1789 in the conference in New York. I guess it was on

loan from the Archives and when Speaker Gingrich came in, he

didn’t want the responsibility for it, so it went back to the Archives. When you looked at those papers, they were absolutely like

it was sort of bolded and minted and written on yesterday. That

was so fascinating to see the ones that Don would say come in and

look at this. That kind of thing I think would have the same impression.

Let me ask, has the Center for Jewish History in New York presented the Commission with a proposal for spending some of your

money? What is the story on that?

Ms. NEWHALL. We had previously agreed with the Center that

we would extend the deadline for submission of their proposal for

the use of the remaining money appropriated to them to April 17.

We considered that the departure of the individual who had been

56

functioning as their project director for our project, the installation

of a new CEO for the Center, and also the uncertainty that was

injected into the process by the complete and then partial rescission of the funds during the appropriations cycle last fall, all constituted legitimate causes for a delayed submission.

However, we have been in close touch with them and a member

of the staff and I paid a site visit a couple of weeks ago. We are

satisfied that they are operating well and on track with their proposal.

Mr. HORN. We heard Mr. Blunt’s comment and others about the

leverage the Commission does. I think there is a lot to that, the

same with the humanities and the arts and their various operations. Do you find that over time you have invested the right resources in particular projects? There have been some cases where

they wrote a good proposal but nothing much happened. How many

do you have like that?

Ms. NEWHALL. Again, I haven’t been with the Commission long

enough to be able to draw upon years of knowledge of every year

going back, but I think it is true that there is always going to be

the disappointing project.

One of the hallmarks of the NHPRC is the amount of work we

put in with potential applicants and the amount of work we expect

them to input in preparation. I think this is the result of the evolving knowledge of the staff in the Commission responding to projects

that were disappointments and building on the strengths of

projects that were good ones. It is hard to mistake the fact that the

more planning and thought that goes in, the more they prepare for

a project, generally, it is going to be better and often better lasting.

One thing we try to do as a consequence of our lessons we have

learned is whenever possible to extract a promise, for instance if

a position is created for the length of the grant, to get the organization to commit to continuing to support that position with their

own funds after the end of the project.

Right now, we are making a more concentrated effort to measure

the performances of our projects certainly in compliance with the

GPRA but also from my own experience, I had intended, coming

into the Commission, to implement such measures. I had previously worked in a very large foundation and was very aware of

the efforts they took to conduct such reviews.

It helps to recognize warning signals that projects are in trouble.

We really want to look at those projects that are not just good but

the huge successes and trying to figure out how much of that can

be replicated in the future. We are new at this but we are really

working to use this to result in much better and longer lasting

projects.

Mr. HORN. Is some of that oral history? Some of the projects, are

they oral history, not just documentary one century ago but people

now?

Ms. NEWHALL. Right.

Mr. HORN. That don’t leave written records but they speak them.

I remember being fascinated by the Library of Congress operation

in the 1930’s, going in and capturing all of the I guess in California

we would have called it hillbilly music but it was music that went

57

back several centuries in the mountains of West Virginia. Thank

heavens we have those on records in the Library of Congress.

Do you feel there is a need for that in the Archives and if so,

what are we doing on it? Do we leave that to the Library of Congress?

Mr. CARLIN. Aside from NHPRC for the moment, we put a lot of

emphasis on oral histories related to Presidential libraries. They

work this very significantly.

I might also add in terms of your previous question, because I

just sent you a report, this percentage comes up to my memory

bank. We set a goal in our strategic plan that NHPRC would be

successful 85 percent of the time with projects that would accomplish their goals. This last year was 89 percent, the actual that

came in. I remember seeing that as I went through our final report

we shipped to you. I think we are basically on target to achieve

what is realistic.

They are not all going to come through but I think this demonstrates an excellent oversight work on the part of the staff to

monitor, follow through, and to assist projects to be successful almost 90 percent of the time.

Ms. NEWHALL. To answer your question about oral histories, the

only projects we support to collect oral histories, to conduct oral

history interviews at the present time is for Native Americans because this is not only a way of collecting history but in many ways,

it is a way of preserving their language as well, and because their

histories are often based on an oral tradition.

We do not currently support projects from other groups to collect

oral history but we will pay for the cataloging of already completed

oral history interviews. This is an area I would love to be able to

have the ability to expand. I personally have a great deal of experience with oral history, particularly as a way of filling in gaps when

there are gaps in the documentation. If you can especially find one

or two or at least three in order to triangulate, three individuals

involved in the same incident, event, or time period, I think it is

a wonderful way of filling these gaps.

It is not as good as documentary history because the memory is

faulty but you get such flavor from it that the paper can’t convey.

At present, we don’t really have the means to support other than

Native American oral history projects.

Mr. HORN. I am delighted to hear that. When I was vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, I met with all the Indian chiefs of New Mexico. Let me tell you, that was a moving experience. A chief in his 80’s came in full regalia and we discussed

a number of different legislative proposals. He was up on all of

them and he brought feelings of two centuries of work to the table.

To have that on film or on an oral audio tape would be really great

for years to come.

I would hope we could work out something so that we can get

things like that done by either you or the Library of Congress. I

don’t know how to work it out, do we flip a coin or what, but that

needs to be done. We have about 300 tribes in this country. Not

all are on the reservation, just a few dozen, but that should be

done before too many moons, shall we say.

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Ms. NEWHALL. We have had a Native American initiative that

began several years ago and have made a real effort to work with

Native American recordkeepers with varying degrees of success I

will say, but it is a huge effort. I think it is probably most successful with the oral histories because of the oral traditions but now

with more contemporary times and younger members, we have a

number of Native American archivists who are fully trained.

Mr. HORN. On your training of archivists, I think we all would

agree on a liberal education and the more you know about history,

anthropology, sociology, and all the rest, the behavioral sciences, if

you will. What else do you feel archivists should learn and are we

funding some of this at the State level or do you have in the archives regional sharing of information where you invite all archivists, one way or the other, either city archives which are very interesting in some places, and the State archives?

Ms. NEWHALL. I am not sure I understand your question.

Mr. HORN. I am just wondering how you are handling the development of the next generation of archivists.

Mr. CARLIN. Let me comment, first of all, from the agency point

of view. We are very much involved with the profession in looking

at the future as to what the educational requirements should be,

what is a professional archivist, how it has changed dramatically.

Historically speaking, you go back and NARA trained their own

people because there were not archivists produced by the system.

Now archivists are being produced. With the change in technology

taking place, it is important that those of us responsible at the end

of really delivering work to the educational community to make

sure the standards, directions, and curricula are appropriate.

Ann will make some comments in terms of specifically how the

NHPRC has funded some grants but I would add, as you are well

aware, we are all across the country and we try, as an agency,

through our regional system to work with colleagues across the

board, State and local in whatever way when we offer training, for

example, and it is not exclusively for Federal. We are very interested in being supportive and in sharing what we have learned and

developed. Ann has some specifics.

Ms. GILLILAND-SWETLAND. I just wondered if I might say also

that there are graduate programs for archivable science that the

new generation of archivists are coming out of masters programs

in the universities across the country. There are not nearly enough

of these programs and they are also facing a critical shortage of

faculty. There are many faculty positions open but there are not

many qualified faculty. Education of the next generation of archivists is a critical issue that NHPRC is working on and the universities are working on as well.

Mr. HORN. How many library programs at the graduate level

exist in campuses across the country and do you work with them?

Ms. GILLILAND-SWETLAND. Yes. The program I am in, there are

probably about 10 library and information science schools with

major programs and probably another 3 or 4 history schools with

major programs. Of those, there are maybe five substantial programs in the country. Those all now have doctoral granting programs.

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Mr. HORN. Besides UCLA, what are they? I know you have a

very good program there.

Ms. GILLILAND-SWETLAND. There is a program at Michigan, one

at Pittsburgh, one at Maryland, one at Texas. Those are probably

now the major programs in the country.

Mr. HORN. And they have the ability to use modern methods?

Ms. GILLILAND-SWETLAND. Yes. They are all short of faculty, particularly faculty with the technology expertise.

Ms. NEWHALL. If I might add, one of the concerns we have is that

professionally, graduate-trained archivists alone are not the only

people who handle historical records. As a consequence this is part

of the focus of the National Forum on Archival Continuing Education which the Commission is funding to be held at the end of

this month.

It is targeting three groups of people, continuing archival education for three groups—one, the professionally graduate-trained

archivists but another what we call the allied professionals, the

public librarians, the museum curators, the city clerks who, as part

of their professional responsibilities, have responsibility for historical documents, but they don’t have the same kind of graduate archival background.

In fact, a third group are what we call the grassroots level. This

can be volunteers in historical societies, what we might call nonprofessionals working within government offices or even historical

societies.

So we are looking in this forum this month at the three groups

and what kinds of needs they have, where do they overlap, and

where are they different.

Mr. HORN. That is very worthwhile, I think. You think of all

those courthouses, about 3,600 counties or so in this country and

all the marvelous records that are there in terms of deeds, cases

in the court, and this kind of thing. I am going through about 30

years of one newspaper in a very small county and you see all sorts

of things that are happening there. It is amazing.

The question is, when the new group says, who wants those old

dusty records, throw them out. As I remember in one Illinois town

place or county place, they found a few that Abraham Lincoln

signed the particular documents there as a young lawyer, whatever

it was.

So I would commend you for that because I don’t know the degree to which we know nationally where county papers are, were

they dumped, are they in the State archives? Everybody has a

problem with space, I know that, but we need to be helpful in some

way.

Ms. NEWHALL. If I could address that question briefly, what I left

out of my verbal remarks because of lack of time was the program

we have with the States which is designed to work with State

board, State historical records advisory boards and we fund

projects whereby they can assess exactly that. They do surveys of

what historical records there are within a State, what kind of condition they are in, how many are in imminent peril, and then we

fund thedevelopment of a statewide strategic plan for preserving

and increasing access to these records.

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Then finally, through a series of what we call ‘‘regrants,’’ which

are projects where HPRC money is matched by State money and

then subgranted by the state board to sometimes dozens or hundreds of small projects within the State to go in and work with

those records. This is a program exactly designed to address that

worry. Where are the records and what can we do to save them.

Mr. HORN. I think with the geology craze, that might have a few

sales in terms of what kinds of records are hither and yon.

Let me yield for such time as she wants to consume to the vice

chair, Ms. Biggert.

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you.

I don’t think I have anymore questions but I must say when the

chairman goes to a field hearing, he heads directly to the antique

book stores first to check out what is there.

Mr. HORN. That is true.

Ms. BIGGERT. He is truly a scholar.

Mr. HORN. I only have 3,500 counties to go.

Ms. BIGGERT. I yield back.

Mr. HORN. When my son was 10 and we drove across America,

he said, Dad’s idea of fun is to go to the county courthouses along

the way and he has become a political scientist, so it wasn’t all lost

on him.

Let me ask a few tough ones and a few easy, soft balls which I

have a tendency to give to this group.

I am told that a substantial portion of the Commission’s appropriation went to a single organization. I was curious, what is the

group and why was that the case? Is it better to just spread it out?

I know with small budgets—I have been with agencies with small

budgets.

Ms. NEWHALL. Of its appropriated funds?

Mr. HORN. Yes. I understand that a substantial portion of the

Commission’s appropriation went to a single organization. Is that

true?

Mr. CARLIN. It would have to be the Jewish History directed

grant. That is the only one that comes to my mind. The grant

which Anne Gilliland-Swetland made reference to with the

InterPARES project was one of the largest but it was in the

$450,000 category which is very, very large for us but I would have

to assume you are making reference to the directed?

Mr. HORN. I don’t know. The question came up and I don’t know

who was for it or with it or whatnot.

Mr. CARLIN. Almost without exception, the grants we give are

small.

Mr. HORN. Do you have any variable formula that in some cases

you say, we will give it to you but you are going to have to produce

75 percent or 50 percent?

Mr. CARLIN. The staff is always working on some kind of a

matching possibility because we don’t have the funds to give to everybody whatever number they come in with, to push them back

down to prioritize, to make the most of the investment we are committed to.

Mr. HORN. Let me get to the loss of records and any criminality

that is involved. To what extent do you believe the archives have

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had people that can pilfer various manuscripts out of the archives?

Have you ever had that problem?

Mr. CARLIN. Unfortunately, the answer is yes. It is not frequent,

not routine. We certainly take our responsibility very seriously to

protect the records and researchers are checked in and out. No one

leaves with a briefcase without the briefcase being checked to make

sure there are no records.

Mr. HORN. But if they have it inside their shirt or something?

Mr. CARLIN. That is correct, we do not do strip searches on

exiting during research at our facilities. It has always been a balancing issue. It is the same with security in general. We pride ourselves on access and we want the image of access. How much security do you provide both for the physical as well as the records

themselves.

Unfortunately, it happens. When it does happen, we take that

very seriously. We pursue any lost records aggressively. There have

been examples where we have found records that were lost to the

custody of the Federal Government, changed hands several times.

In some cases, where the records are being preserved and are made

accessible rather than go through what might be a very expensive

and time-consuming legal process, we arrive at an arrangement

where they can be left in some exceptional cases. For the most

part, we aggressively pursue Federal records. We take our role very

seriously and yes, Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, it does happen.

Mr. HORN. When you have some great manuscripts like the Louisiana Purchase and all that, obviously if that came up on auction,

you know where it came from. Say the papers, for want of something, George Washington, is there any way in modern technology

either by some sort of chemical in a corner or some sort of alarm

that would set it off by having something they could do to the actual records—I realize that is heresy but I would rather see them

there and not stolen. I am just wondering has anyone thought

through what you can do to have sensors at the door which would

set off the alarms?

Mr. CARLIN. That has been discussed. In fact, strictly by coincidence I had an e-mail today—I don’t know why I go back to e-mail

given our earlier discussion—from my Inspector General on the

subject. He has raised the issue himself as to whether this would

be something viable to check into.

One thing I can assure you is that the most obvious intrinsically

valuable records are not accessible to researchers on a routine

basis. When you make reference to say the Monroe Doctrine, for example, those are records we keep in vaults with very limited access.

There are valuable records and the degree varies but we wouldn’t

keep the record if it didn’t have a value that can and does occasionally leave our custody.

Mr. HORN. Your reading room, and I don’t know how many you

have, when I was doing the work on the Cabinet in Congress back

in the late 1960’s, there were maybe three of us using it. Now

every seat is taken I am told. The question is, when people are

using these documents, can your people monitor that in case someone is slipping it out or is there videotape that can just run all day

or something like that which might catch someone doing it.

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Mr. CARLIN. We try, to the best of our ability, staff, to the extent

that we can monitor researchers. Interestingly enough, one of the

issues that came up on the renovation project with our main building downtown was the potential location of a research room where

we had the pillars. We ended up with my full support staying in

the historic research room where there are no problems in terms

of sight from observers to researchers.

That issue came up and we discussed the possible alternatives.

One of the major objections to the alternative was someone could

operate behind a pillar or if one was going to avoid that issue, it

would be much more expensive. We would have to have many more

monitors and maybe go electronically to monitoring the rooms, although that has been considered, as well.

Mr. HORN. Let me move to a more positive one. Before we finish

that, have we had anyone indicted for stealing archives at all?

Mr. CARLIN. First of all, the answer to your question is we are

not aware of anyone that has been indicted. In most cases, we retrieve and unfortunately, the retrieval is usually from an innocent

party and tracing back to the person who actually took the document is sometimes impossible because it has passed through so

many hands.

My staff has reminded me as well that we now operate what we

call clean research rooms. When someone checks in to do research,

we have lockers and they do not take briefcases, suitcases, or whatever into the research room. They leave their attache case or whatever in a locker and go into the research room. In addition to that,

as they leave, whatever they are leaving with, we check.

Mr. HORN. It used to be in the university library profession that

when your rare books room was attacked, they would never say

anything about it. Then they changed where, by George, they tell

everybody.

I know some of the things that were stolen out of the Long Beach

Library, stolen out of the Harvard Library, stolen out of the Yale

Library, it turned out to be the same guy. With us, they either

dropped them out the window or whatever to some accomplice on

a long rope as it got dark and nobody was looking. I remember, I

would look for that thing for years in book catalogs. It was Captain

Cook’s journals or something this guy walked off with, which was

a rather precious series. They caught him but that is because they

changed their attitude and admitted they had a problem to see if

people could help them.

I know people have found some of these people and they have

10,000 books or something in their bedroom in the middle of Ohio

and they are working both coasts and this kind of thing. So I just

wondered if we have anybody we can nail on that?

Mr. CARLIN. I am not aware that we have had quite the extent

of the problem that libraries have had but we are aware it does

happen from time to time. The one thing I can assure you is we

take that as a very serious problem. When the individual cases do

come up, we aggressively pursue resolving it in an appropriate

way.

Mr. HORN. Let me get to a more positive thing. We passed a bill

through here and it is over in the Senate on improving the Presidential transitions and providing the money for it through Mr.

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Kolbe’s Appropriations Subcommittee. So whoever is the President

as a result of the November elections, they would have funding to

educate and get people of knowledge to work with the Cabinet, a

couple of dozen, then the Deputy Secretaries, other key people.

There is roughly, as you know, 3,000 Presidential appointments.

You can get that down to 300 pretty fast when you leave it with

agency heads and some of their key people, assistant secretaries

and all that.

I guess I would ask you are there things that Archives could help

in terms of educating some of these people because every President

is going to want his Presidential library going and if they are

smart, they will start on day one and have an archivist in the

White House that knows what they are doing and knows the

records can be kept, although if we keep subpoenaing everything

around there, maybe they will all burn them to start with. That is

the risk we all take.

Do you have any thoughts on how to educate the 30 top people

that work around the President and the various agencies and what

might you tell them?

Mr. CARLIN. I can assure you that we are aware of your proposal

and the success you have had getting it through the House. My

staff has been involved in answering questions and commenting

and participating because quite frankly we are very interested in

the transition. We are very, very aware of the importance of

records management being a part of day one transition, so the answer to your question is yes, we have and we will welcome any opportunity to further our involvement in any transitional project.

I would say with all due respect to everyone who has held the

Office of President of the United States, we are still waiting for the

first President to be there day one. I can assure you it is one of

my goals and objectives. I would quickly add for the record that the

criticism probably first and foremost comes back on us as an agency in not being aggressive enough. We are going to change that and

if it doesn’t work the next time, it won’t be because we are not

making the effort.

It is particularly true and important in the age of electronic

records. Your point and your interest has always been there and

valuable for any transition. In the era of electronic records, it is essential that we be there and work with to set up the systems in

a correct fashion so that we can avoid the millions of dollars that

have had to be appropriated to go to backup tapes to try to recreate

records that should have been dealt with appropriately in the first

place.

Again, that is not a criticism. We dealt with this in the Reagan

administration, the Bush administration, and now the Clinton administration. It is an internal problem that needs to be dealt with

and you have made a significant contribution. We welcome any way

to partner to make that the success you want it to be.

Mr. HORN. If you could give us a good case on that fairly succinctly because Presidents-elect aren’t going to have much time. I

would like to get a series of options that they could pick from. Obviously it is up to the President ultimately and some of his close

advisers as to who they want to listen to and who they don’t. I personally think they ought to be listening to the Archives. That is

64

why I bring up the question that between the Archives and my

other favorite entities are the Inspector Generals, the General Accounting Office, the Budget Examiners over in BOB.

I have told people when they have been nominated by Presidents

in both parties what you ought to learn before you go to the Senate

because they will get big briefing books from the agency they are

going to run but often they don’t tell them very much. They protect

and pretend the bureaucracy isn’t there.

If you start asking the IG and the people in the General Accounting Office and the Budget Examiners, they will tell you the truth

often of what you are going to get into. Somebody might just throw

a question at you about that. So we would love to have the Archives in on that too.

Mr. CARLIN. We would be very happy to participate and make

sure through staff that we respond in an appropriate, succinct way

to fit the message.

I would quickly add we intend to be very aggressive. We started

during the last few years, trying to make up for lost time. I tried

to reach at the Cabinet level and push down, so there is support

at the top for records management. It is too late for the transition

but there are still records being created and mistakes being made

that are going to be costly. So we have had some success, we are

making progress but partnering with you will certainly give us a

greater opportunity to be successful in the next administration.

Mr. HORN. On the Commission, what is the situation in terms of

your resources, do you feel, if we were able to up the authorization,

that kind of thing? Don’t be shy.

Mr. CARLIN. She is in a little bit of shock because she has not

heard upping the authorization language in her tenure. Quite seriously and I will let Ann comment as well, the whole resource issue

is one we are looking at in a variety of ways. As Ann indicated earlier, she and a lot of folks, as well as outside interests, are taking

a look at where the program is today and its needs, as well as the

future.

As you are well aware right now, we have an authorization of

$10 million and an appropriation of $6 million, so we have some

room to grow within the existing authorized figure. I would tell you

that you should expect in coming years that number of $6 million

to go in terms of requests to get closer to that $10 million in the

relative near future given all the challenges we face in electronic

records as well as other documentary needs.

Mr. HORN. Do you have an actual cost on the electronic records

situation? Is it $2 million, $4 million increase, or what?

Mr. CARLIN. In terms of NHPRC?

Mr. HORN. Yes.

Mr. CARLIN. No, we do not have a number at this time.

Mr. HORN. Is there any way we can get a number or is it just

impossible?

Mr. CARLIN. No, it is not impossible to get a number but we are

not far enough along in terms of the study that is taking place to

give you a number at this time. Obviously consistent with the history and the way NHPRC operates, it will be relatively speaking

to the total need, a modest figure leveraging other resources publicly and privately at all levels. Certainly the NHPRC is not going

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to come forward with a number to solve the problems. It is very

helpful to have NHPRC with the resources to partner, to leverage,

to be used as they have so successfully on many, many electronic

records problems and issues and projects that have produced very

valuable information and uses for all levels of government outside

the Federal Government.

Mr. HORN. I don’t want to keep you any longer. Are there any

questions we should have brought up that we were too dumb to see

and if so, what are they?

Mr. CARLIN. I would not suggest, certainly for the record, that

there would be any possibility that you have missed anything.

Mr. HORN. Remember you are under oath.

Mr. CARLIN. I understand. [Laughter.]

I would tell you, on behalf of the entire Commission, and all the

endless beneficiaries of NHPRC, we very much appreciate this committee’s interest and particularly your strong leadership in providing support, in challenging us, in raising tough questions because

you have an appropriate role and it is a role we want to work with.

Bottom line, we want to deliver and you are of great assistance to

that bottom line delivery.

Mr. HORN. You are a very able political figure and you sort of

follow my friend and one of my late part-time mentors when I was

on the Hill, Senator Dirksen in his back office would say, ‘‘We can

win more with honey than we can with vinegar.’’ A lot of people

around here still need to learn that but that was the way Dirksen

was a great leader and got things done. He would leave his office

at 9 p.m., he is in the back seat, flips on the light and he is reading

bills. He knew more than the author of the bill at the time it came

up in the Senate.

Those who know something thanks to Archives and libraries get

things done.

Thank you for coming and we appreciate it. You are doing good

work and keep doing it.

Mr. CARLIN. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. We are adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Turner follows:]

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