NCC Washington Update 2:36, 10/30/96

[mwidener@mail.law.utexas.edu (Mike Widener)]

NCC Washington Update, vol. 2, # 36, October 30, 1996
   by Page Putnam Miller, Director of the National Coordinating
      Committee for the Promotion of History <pagem@capaccess.org>

1.  USIA Sends 60 American Studies Collections Abroad
2.  Update on Heritage Areas
3.  Travel and Tourism Legislation Will Promote Heritage Sites

1.  USIA Sends 60 American Studies Collections Abroad - Sixty sets -- each
comprising a core of 1,300 volumes of current scholarship in American
history, government, and culture --are in the process of being shipping to
or arriving at universities in South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe.
As a result of legislation passed in 1994 and spearheaded by Professor
Joyce Appleby when she was President of the Organization of American
Historians, the Congress created a $2 million endowment fund for this
initi ative.  The intent of the American Studies Collection project is to
provide foreign students, teachers, and scholars with the opportunity to
increase their understanding of American history, politics, and culture.

The U.S. Information Agency (USIA)'s Division for the Study of the U.S.
administers the project and has developed cooperative agreements for
servicing the collection with the libraries at 60 universities abroad with
American Studies programs.  One of the most frequently heard laments of
American scholars who have taught abroad is the difficulties of teaching
without even the most rudimentary library resources.  The American Studies
Collections initiative is addressing a very real problem that has
seriously handicapped the teaching of American studies abroad.

2.  Update on Heritage Areas -- Part of the Omnibus Parks Bill, which
passed on the final day of the 104th Congress, included a number of
sections dealing with heritage areas.  At the beginning of this Congress,
supporters of heritage areas had advocated legislation to create a new
heritage areas program within the National Park Service that would provide
a mechanism for designating and assisting new heritage areas.  This was
not realized.  After running into many roadblocks over the terms for
designating heritage areas, Congress concluded its work by dealing with
individual areas.

The Omnibus Parks Bill designated nine new heritage areas -- National Coal
Heritage Area in southern West Virginia, Tennessee Civil War Heritage
Area, Augusta Canal National Heritage Area, Steel Industry Heritage
Project in Pennsylvania, Essex National Heritage Area in Massachusetts,
South Carolina National Heritage Corridor, America's Agricultural Heritage
Partnership in Iowa, the Ohio and Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor,
and the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area.  The new law
authorized funds for these areas, but Congress did not appropriate any
money for them.

3.  Travel and Tourism Legislation Will Promote Heritage Sites --The
President signed on October 11, H.R. 2579, a bill to establish the United
States Tourism Organization.  A federal charter established this new
organization for the purpose of promoting travel and tourism in the
United States and of providing financial assistance to non-profit
organizations that can assist in promoting its goals.  The National Trust
for Historic Preservation will serve on the United States Tourism
Organization's Board to provide leadership in promoting heritage sites
and to ensure that heritage tourism is a basic part of the organization's
goals and program.


Correction:  In the October 16 "NCC Washington Update" in the section on
new Nixon documents at the National Archives, the update stated
incorrectly that the release of these documents resulted from the court
ordered mediation of the case of historian Stanley Kutler.  Kutler's case
dealt only with the Nixon tapes and not with the contested White House
files.  However concerns about access to the tapes and to the paper files
have been intertwined.  At the April 12 press conference that announced
the court ordered settlement on the tapes, there were questions and
discussion of the Nixon contested files.  A number of historians contend
that the prodding exerted by the tapes court case had a direct impact on
the release of the paper files.

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