Institutions that do the filming must retain a master negative, a print master, and a service copy, and they must provide copies of the film at cost upon request. In addition, the microfilms must be stored under environmental conditions that meet nationally accepted standards. Only a Federal agency could have introduced the requirement that bibliographic records for the filmed materials go into a national data base, to alert potential users everywhere to their existence, and to save libraries the expense of duplicative filming. When private foundations joined the microfilming effort, they adopted these same requirements as conditions of their grants. Federal support has meant that hundreds of individual preservation efforts around the country are leveraged and added to a nationwide program.
None stands apart or risks being redundant.
When NEH supports the preservation of collections that relate immediately to state or local history, it is with a recognition that the collections are part of the mosaic of the entire nation's history. The research significance of these materials extends well past the borders of New York. Indeed, the NEH initiative has had a remarkable influence internationally. Its example has prompted governments elsewhere to take similar action to preserve their nations' printed heritage, and they have used the American experience as a model in organizing their preservation programs. As a result, the international community is sharing with the United States the effort and the great expense of saving and making accessible the fragile memory of the world.