WASHINGTON UPDATE
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Federal Funding Opportunity for K-12 History & Civics Grants Announced

Federal Competitive Grant funding is now available for K-12 History and Civics Education professional developmentThe US Department of Education has published a Federal Register Notice announcing the grant competition for the National Activities grants we successfully advocated for in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Click here to read the Federal Register Notice.
 Read more... 
 
House Appropriations Committee Clears FY18 Funding Bills 
 
The House Appropriations Committee has approved four funding bills that  include agencies and programs which most affect the historical community. Three agencies that were slated for elimination by the Trump administration (National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute of Museum and Library Sciences and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission) were either level funded or received small cuts. To see a chart prepared by NCH summarizing the funding bills click here.  Read more... 

NCH Opposes Elimination of Saturday Research Hours At National Archives DC-Area Facilities

On July 12, the National Coalition for History (NCH) sent a letter to Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero opposing the elimination of Saturday research hours at the main Archives building in Washington and Archives II in College Park, Maryland which began July 22. Read more... 
 
Congress Appoints Panel to Plan for USA's 250th Anniversary 
 
In July 2016, Congress passed legislation (Public Law 114-196) establishing the US Semiquincentennial Commission to begin planning for the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026. Nearly a year later, Congress has finally completed the task of naming the private sector members of the panel. To see the roster of the panel, click here. Read more... 
 
National Archives Releases Cache of Remaining JFK Assassination Records 
 
On July 24, the National Archives released 3,810 documents and 17 audio recordings out of the remaining unreleased records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. According to NARA, 88% of the JFK Assassination Records Collection has been released. The agency is under a legal mandate to release all remaining records by October of this year. An agency who continues to oppose their release can appeal to the president who would have approve to the request to withhold.  Read more... 

Information Security Oversight Office Report Shows Increase in Declassified Records

The Information Security Oversight Office of the National Archives (ISOO) has released its FY 2016 annual report, which details government agencies’ security classification activities. It showed there was a 17 percent increase in the number of pages of historically valuable records reviewed and  a 19 percent increase in the number of pages declassified last year.  Read more... 

IMLS Report Summarizes Federal Support for Museums and Libraries in Each State

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) recently released reports with detailed views of IMLS funding for the past six years (FY 2011 through FY 2016) for every state across the nation and the District of Columbia. The IMLS funding report includes total dollars and counts of IMLS grants and awards.  Read more... 

 

 
NEWS ROUNDUP

National Park Service Awards Maritime Grants 

The National Park Service recently awarded $1,752,073 for 27 maritime heritage grants to applicants in 13 states and the District of Columbia. 
National Park Service Press Release, 7/7/2017
https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/07-07-2017-maritime-heritage-grants.htm
 
National Security Agency Records Languish at National Archives 

The National Archives has acquired a large number of historically valuable National Security Agency records. But they remain inaccessible to researchers, at least for the time being.
Secrecy News @ Federation of American Scientists, 7/17/2017
https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2017/07/nsa-records-languish/

New Entries Released by the National Declassification Center (NDC) 

The NDC has released a listing of 94 entries that have completed declassification processing and are now available for researcher request.
NDC Blog 7/20/2017
https://declassification.blogs.archives.gov/2017/07/20/new-entries-released-by-the-national-declassification-center-2/

National Archives, Library of Congress Join PDF Association 

Library of Congress Press Release 7/13/2017
https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-17-103/library-of-congress-national-archives-join-pdf-association/2017-07-13/

Correction 

Martha C. Nussbaum Delivers the Jefferson Lecture in Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities, 5/1/2017
https://www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture/martha-nussbaum-jefferson-lecture
Note: In the last edition of NCH's Washington Update we mistakenly identified the lecturer as Margaret, not Martha, Nussbaum. We apologize for oversight.

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