ANNUAL APPEAL to benefit the Institute of Historical Research

From the Membership Secretary

Prof. Nancy W. Ellenberger
Department of History
U. S. Naval Academy
Annapolis, MD 21402-5044

• Please consider making an annual tax-deductible (U.S.A.) contribution for the benefit of the Institute of Historical Research.
• A contribution of $45.00 or more provides standing as a regular individual member of the Institute to U.S.-resident donors.
  • A contribution of $30.00 annually provides similar standing for graduate students
  • And, as an option open only to American Friends of the IHR, for an additional $30.00, members may opt to have full access to the rich array of resources of the IHR's British History Online (as explained on the contribution form).
• Checks and forms should be returned to Prof. Ellenberger (use address on tax deductible contribution form) in order to maintain an updated list of contributors and addresses (checks will be sent on to our treasurer).

From the President of the AFIHR

President's Report to the Membership

December 2009

Sears McGee
President, AFIHR,
Department of History,
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9410

Previous Reports

The AFIHR board met during the NACBS conference in Louisville early in November. Once again, we are grateful to your contributions which enabled us to make grants of  $16,400 to underwrite important parts of the IHR’s program. The board approved a grant to help graduate students from North America to participate in the History Lab conference on “Spaces and Places” from June 26-29 at the IHR. This is part of our endeavor to acquaint a new generation of graduate students with the IHR library, its seminars, and its facilities supporting historical research. Let me encourage those of you who know or teach graduate students to consider applying for a grant by going to the IHR website and examining under “Study and Training” the plans for History Lab’s June conference. Our $16,400 allocation is to be devoted to the History Lab conference for graduate students ($2,000), the digitization and addition to British History Online (BHO) of Foster’s Alumni Oxoniensis ($6,000), and the IHR library purchasing fund ($8,400).

The new director of the IHR, Miles Taylor, has just completed his first year, and we enjoyed hearing from him about the progress of numerous initiatives that are under way. Readers of this report may recall that last year we began an effort to address the problem of access to digital historical sources on-line for those members of our profession who teach at institutions whose libraries cannot afford the subscriptions that must be paid to provide access to these vital materials. Thanks to generous cooperation from the IHR staff in London, we announced at least a partial solution at this time last year. AFIHR members can, for an additional $30 (on top of the $45 annual membership) have access to the “premium content” of BHO. We also created a new membership category for graduate students; they may join us for $30 annually. Please note that the BHO access is provided on a calendar year basis beginning January 1. Among other perks, subscribers to this option can make keyword searches of most of the Calendars of State Papers. Funds generated in this way will be spent on expanding the range and variety of digitized sources for British history. Further details about how all this operates are available on the AFIHR and IHR websites.  We are pleased that approximately fifty of our members have opted to make use of this benefit and hope that more will do so. We especially hope that our efforts to reach younger scholars with news of this option will bear fruit. One of my own graduate students has recently presented in my seminar a terrific dissertation chapter  on the transmission and “spinning” of “news” in the late 1640s and early 1650s which relied heavily on exploitation of this keyword search.

Please renew your membership in the AFIHR so we can continue to support the work of the IHR from this side of the Atlantic. More information is available elsewhere on this website, and we remain grateful to Newton Key for his excellent work as our webmaster. A contribution $45 or more annually to the American Friends of the IHR ($30 for graduate students) confers membership in the Institute and facilitates the creation or updating of a personal "swipe" card at the reception desk. All officers and board members of the AFIHR serve without compensation. Administrative costs are minimal, consisting of mailing expenses, occasional technical services, and accounting fees. Therefore nearly every dollar contributed is forwarded to the Institute in order to help pay for some aspect of its work. As you may observe on the stub below, checks are to be sent to Professor Nancy Ellenberger, so that she can keep our membership list up to date. She will forward all checks to our treasurer, Bill Lubenow. Thank you for your past support.

Sincerely yours,

Sears McGee