The project began in 1972 and produced its first volume in 1976. A partial supplementary microfilm edition, including full typed transcripts of all documents calendared in volumes 1-4 of the print edition, was produced by Scholarly Resources in 19nn. All documents, whether calendared or printed in full, are collated the same number of times. Both Scholarly Resources, the publisher of the supplementary edition, and UNC Press, the publisher of the typeset edition, are receptive to discussions of electronic publication. Early transcripts prepared by the project spelled out ampersand as the word 'and', silently expanded abbreviations, and dropped superscripts silently to the baseline.
More recent transcriptions retain ampersand and superscripts.
Since the project began submitting material to UNC Press in electronic form, it has inserted typographic codes into the material sent to the press. Since these codes are inserted only for the sake of the press, they are present only in printed documents, not in calendared documents. The project has no student help. 2.5 Calendared Items When documents are calendared, they are printed without salutation and complimentary close, in order to save space. In drafting the abstract, the editors attempt to capture all the intelligence of the letter, quoting it where necessary.