On May 23-24 as provided for by our Constitution, the Council of the Association held its spring meeting in Washington to adopt a budget for the 1986-87 fiscal year, to act on a number of honorary award recommendations, and to discharge other business matters of the Association.
The Council’s Finance Committee, made up of the president, his predecessor, his successor, and two other Council members, convened on the morning of May 23 to review the proposed budget of the Association for the fiscal year beginning July 1. It adopted a budget farseeing revenues and expenditures in approximate balance at just over $1,160,000. The Council later approved the Committee’s decision.
Among the more interesting policy matters covered during the meeting, were a continuation of the technological upgrading of the American Historical Review’s equipment, the purchase of an optical character reader, and further investigation of changing our financial management and membership record-keeping to an in-house computer system. The fiscal records for our first 102 years have been kept manually in ledgers and membership list maintenance has been contracted out.
The Council approved a Finance Committee recommendation that royalties accruing to the Association from the publication of the proceedings of the successful AHA-sponsored Conference in 1983 on the study and teaching of Afro-American history be shared with the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History.
The Council also endorsed the Committee’s recommendation that an advance of funds be authorized, if necessary, to assist in the realization of an important Project ’87 program, which has developed an excellent series of posters on the Constitution. Sales of the poster series are expected to more than cover development costs.
The Council approved recommendations from the Research Division for designating three additional foreign scholars of eminence as Honorary Members of the AHA. This practice began in the first year of our existence with the naming of Leopold von Ranke as the first such honoree. The honorary members are chosen by the Research Division and Council from nominees recommended by members for their eminence as historians and for their assistance and hospitality to American scholars studying in their countries. The names of the honorees will be announced at the Annual Meeting in Chicago and publicized in a later issue of Perspectives. Similarly, two historians of this country were selected to receive the Association’s Distinguished Service Award at the annual meeting. They will join Professor Felix Gilbert, the first recipient of this recognition by the Association for distinguished scholarship and outstanding service to the discipline.
The Council heard an interesting report from President Degler describing his visits to a number of colleges, universities, and high schools over the fall, winter, and spring to look into the state of history and its servants. He will be reporting to the membership in a later issue.
Among the many policy matters considered and acted on were the following: approval of a letter from the Vice President for Research to Chairman English of the House subcommittee that oversees the National Archives, condemning a Justice Department–Office of Management and Budget effort to provide perpetual executive privilege protection of any papers designated by any ex-President—this measure would almost certainly slam the door on any opening to scholars and the public of the Watergate and other Nixon papers; authorization of a letter to the Secretary of the Interior calling for appointment of a historian to the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Centennial Commission; approval of a resolution on Preservation (see below); approval of the Committee on Committees’ nominees to the many appointive positions on prize, ad hoc, and standing committees of the AHA; approval of the Research Division’s continued exploration of a new Guide to Historical Literature with the advice and assistance of the Association for the Bibliography of History.
The Council also approved the makeup of the Program Committee for 1987 after hearing a presentation by its chair, Professor Lewis Perry. It asked Professor Paul Conkin, our faithful Parliamentarian, to serve again at the December annual business meeting of the Association. It approved a plan of action proposed by the newly appointed AHA Columbus Quincentennial Committee, and it directed the launching this year of a Speakers Bureau, including many distinguished members, who are willing to make guest lecturer appearances by arrangement and to donate their fees to the AHA. This bureau is modeled on an earlier, highly successful OAH project, but avoids any overlap by confining our speakers’ list to fields outside of US history.
Lastly and with regret, the Council recognized that funding is not now available for launching a popular magazine of history and discharged the faithful and hard-working committee on this project, chaired by Robert I. Rotberg of MIT, with appreciation for the commit tee members’ zeal and hard work.
Guidelines on Preservation
Recent surveys at the Library of Congress, Yale, the New York Public Library, Stanford, and other major research libraries have shown that at least one quarter of the collections in these libraries are brittle and over 80 percent are on paper that is already acidic. Especially at risk are books and documents published or written on paper manufactured since the middle of the nineteenth century.
Historians can and should help ad dress the problem of deteriorating sources in the following ways:
- Call to the attention of staff in research repositories, books or documents in need of treatment. Loose or missing spines, pages which crack when handled or fall out because they have already broken off, evidence of mold or insects, documents crammed into drawers or boxes, materials which leave the user covered with flaking paper are all candidates for repair, rehousing, or filming.
- Assist preservation efforts by attesting to the importance for research to identify the deteriorating materials, thereby helping library and archival staff determine prior ities for treatment or reformatting.
- Support budget requests for funds to undertake such measures.
- Inform appropriate decision makers that printing on acid-free paper need not be more expensive.
The historical profession is probably the discipline that has the most to lose from the disintegration of the documentation of the last century and a half. It therefore should play an active role in developing and supporting projects to save at least the intellectual content of these materials.
Adopted by the Council of the American Historical Association
May 23, 1986
Resolution on Preservation
WHEREAS recent surveys of the collections of leading research libraries have demonstrated that books printed on paper manufactured since the mid-nineteenth century begin to deteriorate rapidly about fifty years after publication, and
WHEREAS documentary records are similarly threatened,
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Historical Association encourages its members to become more aware of the threat posed by paper deterioration to the essential sources of history, to support projects to transfer the information contained therein to a more stable medium, and to insist that their own works be published on acid-free paper, so that the current problem will not continue to worsen.
Adopted by the Council of the American Historical Association
May 23, 1986
