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Vol. 25:1 ISSN 0160-8460 April 1997
NHPRC Extends Opportunity for Plan Revision Review
Implementation of the revised plan of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission will be delayed to give organizations whose members have an interest in the NHPRC an opportunity to comment further on the nature and future of the Commission.In November 1996, the NHPRC simplified its strategic plan and revised the plan's priorities. Meeting again on February 20, the Commission accepted a recommendation from its executive director and Executive Committee to delay the plan's implementation in order to honor requests for additional constituent-organization comment, to be reviewed at the next NHPRC meeting, June 19-20. The Commission is inviting interested organizations to respond to five questions having to do with how the Commission allocates its funds in attempting to carry out its statutory objectives. Notice of the invitation is being published in the Federal Register, and the questions and information on responding are available from the NHPRC, Room 607, National Archives Building, Washington, DC, 20408, and via the NHPRC Web site: http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/. Inquiries also are welcome by telephone: (202) 501-5600, and by e-mail: nhprc@nara.gov.
The recommendation to invite additional comment came at the February meeting in the following statement from NHPRC's executive director, Gerald George:
Statement
The governing bodies of the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians have addressed to me personally the following identical resolution: They ask "the executive director of the NHPRC to provide a time at a future commission meeting to reconsider the strategic plan, thus giving to constituent groups an opportunity to examine the issues its adoption raises, and to comment to the commission on their findings at that meeting."
I remain convinced of the desirability of the plan adopted by the Commission's majority, but I recommend that this request to extend the opportunity for constituent comment be honored. Therefore, I have requested and received permission from all Commissioners who joined in support of the plan revision adopted in November to place a discussion of the plan on the agenda for the June 1997 meeting, and to delay staff implementation of the revised plan in the interim. Additionally, I have worked on development of a process for this review with the Executive Committee, which will present its process recommendations at this meeting, along with a formal motion to put plan review on the June agenda. I hope all Commissioners will join in supporting this effort to accommodate fairly what seems to the Executive Committee and me a reasonable request.
Resolution
The executive director's statement was incorporated in the following resolution, which the Commission approved on the recommendation of its Executive Committee:
Resolved, that the National Historical Publications and Records Commission
(a) accepts the recommendation of the executive director to place on the agenda of the June 1997 NHPRC meeting a review of the NHPRC plan as revised by the Commission in November 1996;
(b) instructs staff to invite interested organizations to respond, by May 1, 1997, to a set of questions (attached), including organizations that provided resolutions of support for NHPRC's last two reauthorization bills, so far as this invitation is consistent with federal law and regulations on information-gathering by Federal agencies; and,
(c) authorizes the Executive Committee to meet in May to review the responses and forward them to the Commission with such further recommendations as may be desirable for review of the plan at the Commission's meeting in June.
Questions
The following are the questions that the NHPRC invites organizations of constituencies to address.
a) How should the legislative history of the NHPRC affect decisions on how the Commission allocates its resources?
b) How effectively have past NHPRC allocations met the statutory objectives of the commission?
c) What public benefits should the Commission seek to achieve in the context of entering a new century, with changing circumstances in technology, user expectations, and scholarly communication?
d) What is an appropriate way for the NHPRC to determine, in principle, how its funds should be allocated?
e) What are the implications of the new strategic plan for the NHPRC's ability to achieve its statutory objectives?
For a summary of the revised NHPRC plan, please see "NHPRC Revises Strategic Plan" on page 4 of the previous issue of Annotation (Vol. 24:3, December 1996).
