I received this from another list.
Lynn
In late July, the National Archives announced they
were planning to cut
back
the hours of the Washington DC area facilities of the
archives. This
would
eliminate all evening and Saturday hours and greatly
harm the ability
of the
average genealogist to access the records. For full
details, see
http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2006/nr06-125.html
While the Archivist of the United States was at the
FGS conference he
reported that they had received very little feedback
from the country's
genealogists asking for reconsideration. He was also
presented with a
request from the chair of the FGS Records Preservation
Committee to
consider
some alternatives and a petition was started to allow
genealogists to
express their disagreement with the changes and to
endorse alternatives
that
will allow the evening and Saturday hours to continue.
You can see more details about that in Dick Eastman's
weekly newsletter
at:
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2006/09/quick_please_jo.html
The petition can be signed at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/FGS2006
I would encourage each of you, as board members of The
USGenWeb Project
to
use your influence to publicize this information
throughout the
project.
Note that the deadline for receiving comments on the
proposed changes
by the
archives is September 9, so there isn't much time. And
I suspect that
if
they succeed in reducing the Washington hours, the
regional archives
will be
soon to follow.
I appreciate all that each of you do in support of the
project
membership
and all genealogists with US ancestry. I believe that
a little effort
in
support of this effort by FGS will pay off long term
in enhancing our
ability to deliver free information to our clients -
genealogists
everywhere.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com