Hello all, To those of you who are residents of NY State, the Association of Public Historians of New York State (APHNYS) has some things in the works that you may be interested in. The 3rd of these things will effect the services you enjoy from the State Archives and Library. 1) We passed a resolution last fall to document the effects of September 11th within our own communities. This can be stories of your reactions, what you told your children, their drawings, any fund raising events you held, if you served at ground zero, etc. So if you have anything to share please pass it along to your local NY municipal historian. 2) We also passed 2 resolutions at our spring conference. One is in support of the appointment of a State Historian, a position that has been left vacant for a number of years. 3) Also a resolution in opposition of the governors plan to have NY form an institute called NYICE. This is not a good thing and will effect your ability to collect and preserve history. They want to do away with the Office of Cultural Education, then take the State Archives, State Library, State Museum and Public Broadcasting out of the State Education Dept. and glump them into this new thing called New York State Institute of Cultural Education (NYICE). The money they plan to use to fund this will come from the Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund. The money that goes into this fund comes from various documents that get filed in the county clerks office. As you know there are certain filing fees, which the state intends to quadruple! By LAW the money that goes into that fund is for Records Management Grants (Sara grants), Documentary Heritage Program (grants) , and the State Archives Trust, and is to be used for nothing else. BUT thats what the governor wants to use for NYICE. Basically there will be little to nothing for grants if they do this, which is bad for researchers as well. This is how we get funded for a lot of the wonderful things you pour through to do your genealogy. It will also have an effect on services from the Archives, Museum and Library. Bad stuff. If your organization wishes to oppose this (As many are, as well as several municipalities) I suggest a resolution and send it to your Senator and the governor. If you are a resident, a letter will be just as good. They plan to have this take effect July 1, 2002! You can see what we did, at our web site off the main page (middle right). The web address is http://www.tier.net/aphnys I put both our resolutions on the website if you need ideas. To find your senator go to: http://www.senate.state.ny.us/ There is a link called "senators" on the left to do a look-up. Just thought I'd pass that along. Us history folk don't like to hear our services are getting chopped up or axed all together! Thank you for your time............ Cindy Amrhein Town of Alabama Historian Genesee Co., NY ********************** Historian's Page - Alabama, NY http://www2.pcom.net/cinjod/historian/ Experience the town of Alabama in Genesee County, New York. History, tombstone inscriptions, census records, history of the Tonawanda Seneca Indians and the Iroquois. Enjoy a good murder mystery? Read about the murders of Polly Frisch. APHNYS (The Association of Public Historians of New York State) http://www.tier.net/aphnys/ Genesee County, NY website. Includes History Department, (under "Historian") http://www.co.genesee.ny.us/ The Genesee Area Genealogy Society lists the names and addresses for all the Genesee & Wyoming County Historians http://www.rootsweb.com/~nygags/hist.htm