APG Advocacy Update - May 2025

This article originally appeared in the May 2025 issue of APG eNews

A Busy Month for APG’s Advocacy Efforts

By Rich Venezia

This month, the Advocacy Committee wishes to highlight the work of several organizations in the United States who are fighting hard against various reductions or elimination of agencies, as well as threatened cuts, in the hopes that our members may get involved with these various efforts.
  1. The American Library Association (ALA) has started a petition to urge the House of Representatives to fund libraries after the Trump administration’s elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Many libraries provide free access to databases like Ancestry.com, and many libraries nationwide have unique local history sections or manuscripts that are crucial to genealogical research. Read more and sign on to the petition at  https://bit.ly/3RUVpQh. (Only US residents can sign on to this petition.)
  2. The National Humanities Alliance is working to save the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which among many other things, supports access to and preservation of local archives, as well funding newspaper digitization projects. They have put together two action alerts:  https://bit.ly/4lNXzPb. (Again, it appears that these action alerts are mainly for US residents.)
  3. The Director of the Syracuse University Press put together a comprehensive but concise overview of the fights to save IMLS and the NEH, both of which are battling for survival.    https://bit.ly/4jOvwNG.
  4. The Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) at the University of California Riverside maintains the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC). The CDNC will go offline without funding, which has been cut from the 2026 state budget. The Director of the CBSR urges California residents to write to the members of the Senate’s Budget and Fiscal Review Committee’s Subcommittee No. 1, and the State Assembly’s Subcommittee No. 3 on Education Finance. Sample text and more information is provided on the APG Advocacy message board in the Members Area of the APG website (Communication > Message Boards).
  5. The Council of State Archivists provides frequent posts to keep people up-to-date about various issues across the country. Follow them on Facebook  (https://www.facebook.com/CouncilOfStateArchivists), Twitter/X  (https://twitter.com/StateArchivists), or LinkedIn  (https://bit.ly/LinkedInCSA).

If you see something, say something! The Advocacy Issues message board exists so members can alert each other about important and time-sensitive issues related to records preservation and records access advocacy. We have one piece of good news to share out of New York State! The proposal to restrict access to vital records is completely dead in the water and will not be included in the final budget. Thanks to all who took action on this, especially the Advocacy Committee’s chair, Alec Ferretti!

We continue to implore our US-based members to contact their elected officials to discuss the importance of additional funding to the National Archives & Records Administration (NARA), which is on life support and needs our help. Members of Congress almost never hear about the National Archives, so even a few phone calls can make a significant difference. Our elected officials only know about what’s important to us if we tell them! Read the formal letter from APG about NARA funding. You can find guidance on how to contact your representatives to express the importance of increasing NARA’s funding here:  https://www.congress.gov/members/find-yourmember. Please also encourage your genealogical societies, clients, and colleagues to contact their Senators and Representative. Visit  https://fundnara.com for more information.

Stay tuned for more ways to advocate, and do let us know if you come across issues you think we should be aware of. You can reach us at advocacy@apgen.org or post to the Message Board. If interested in joining the Advocacy SIG, please fill out the application here: https://bit.ly/4cNGDUR. There is no fee for APG members to join this Special Interest Group.