The price for access to all four presidents' papers has not been set. It is expected to be a sliding scale. For example, to gain access to the Washington papers already on the Rotunda site, individuals and high schools pay a one-time fee of $663, with prices increasing to $6,630 for large research universities.
"Once a library buys it, they have it forever," said Penelope J. Kaiserlian, director of the University of Virginia Press.
But the cost could prevent the public from getting the papers, said Deanna Marcum, associate librarian for library services at the Library of Congress.
She urged the senators to support placing an online version, including unannotated papers, at her institution, which she said already had digitized copies of the presidential papers of Washington, Jefferson and Madison.
"The scholarly editions in their current form are serving the scholarly community well, but we serve a different audience," she said.
Historians emphasized that placing the information online or speeding the process should not be allowed to affect the quality of the work.
The papers' editors, McCullough told the committee, "are the best in the business, and the high quality of the work they do need not [and] must not be jeopardized or vitiated in order to speed up the rate of production. There really should be no argument about that."
McCullough, who said he supported increased funding so that additional staff could be hired, noted that he had relied extensively on the founding fathers' papers for two of his bestselling books, "1776" and the Pulitzer-winning "John Adams."
"Their value is unassailable, immeasurable. They are superbly edited. They are thorough. They are accurate," he said, adding: "I know how essential the papers are to our understanding those great Americans and their time."
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sarah.wire@latimes.com
