From: Mike St. Clair/TT
Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 10:55 AM
Subject: Petition on reduction in hours for National Archives
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.
Mike St. Clair