As part of the Library of Congress observance of the forthcoming sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) is seeking the assistance of eligible repositories in identifying and describing archival collections relating to the conflict. Eligible repositories must 1) be located in the United States or its territories; 2) must regularly admit researchers; and 3) must lack the capability of entering their own archival cataloging into OCLC.

Also part of the NUCMC observance of the Civil War sesquicentennial will be a five year/five part exhibit on our Web site entitled “NUCMC and the Documentary Heritage of the American Civil War.” The exhibit will highlight program cataloging of the last quarter century and will also contain related visual content. Initial plans call for the first exhibit (2011) to focus on the election of Abraham Lincoln, the secession crisis, the outbreak of hostilities, mobilizing for war, and foreign public opinion. Succeeding  exhibits will feature personal narratives of members of the Union and Confederate armed forces (2012); the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and the African American experience from slavery to the end of the war (2013); the home front, women in the war, the role of charitable organizations, economic aspects of the war, and patriotic societies (2014); and the sesquicentennial of the death of Abraham Lincoln, Reconstruction, Confederate exiles, and the rise of veterans’ organizations (2015).

For more information about NUCMC program participation please visit our Web site at http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc or contact us at Library of Congress, Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division, NUCMC, 101 Independence Ave., S.E., Stop-4230  Washington, D.C. 20540-4230. Email: nucmc@loc.gov . Telephone: (202) 707-7954. Fax: (202) 252-2082.