Sustainability: As Funding Dries up, Search for Lincoln Papers at National Archives Might be Halted

From The Washington Post:

…as the country approaches the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in November, the [Papers of Abraham Lincoln project] work at the archives [NARA facilities in the DC area] might soon end.
[Assistant Editor of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project David J.] Gerleman and Daniel W. Stowell, the Lincoln papers director, said Wednesday that, barring new funding, money for their archives research will run out in June, and their work there could stop well before then.
[Our emphasis] The overall project, based at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, in Springfield, Ill., would continue. But the digging in the archives, where the vast majority of Lincoln documents are located, would be suspended.
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The project began work in 1985 searching for Lincoln’s legal papers. It published them in four volumes and posted them online in 2008. Meanwhile, it expanded its scope in 2001 to include all Lincoln papers.
It is transcribing and annotating Lincoln documents from the years before his presidency. Many of them are online. And it is still searching out papers from his war years.
An estimated 75,000 documents at the archives remain to be examined, Stowell said. Without additional funding, the research might have to wait.

Read the Complete Article
See Also: Documents Recently Added to the Collection
See Also: Photo Gallery of Some Documents (via Washington Post)

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