18 SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT

decreased to two or three by the early Spring and in June, when all
non-defense Projects were abandoned, only one worker was still with
us. As in the case of the WPA, less was accomplished by the NYA
at the Hall of Records than during the preceding year. The greater
number of workers who had had previous experience and our own better
understanding of what types of work they could do and how they might
be directed more efficiently were not able to overcome the serious loss
in the number of workers. The contributions of these workers can-
not be segregated here from the work of the regular staff; it will
suffice to say that they had a part in all of our projects of arrange-
ment, accessioning, cataloguing, indexing and filing. Sometimes their
part was small, but usually it was large. Perhaps it is not out of place
here to say that none of these workers were cut off, they went one by
one to good and responsible positions in defense work or in the agencies
of the Federal government. They had come to the Hall of Records
fresh from school or as surplus in industry with no needed skills, they
were trained or retrained at the Hall of Records to be useful citizens.
By employing them after this preliminary training had been received
at the Hall of Records, the Federal government recovered by that
much the investment it had made in these projects.

EMERGENCY PROTECTION OF RECORDS

The Hall of Records Commission will note that our program of
copying records by photostat and by microfilm has progressed extraor-
dinarily during the past year. In addition to the permanent value of
having copies of unique records, there is the present value as assurance
against the loss of the originals by enemy action. Some other records
have been marked for removal to Western Maryland in the event that
the danger should become more imminent. Depositaries have been
chosen, transportation provided for, and containers have been made
for each volume or each group of papers. For the protection of
materials which must in any case remain at the Hall of Records, all
the steps recommended by the Office of Civilian Defense have been
taken.

The Archivist has also studied the experience of the Public Record
Office and other depositaries of Europe as well as the protective meas-
ures which have been taken in this country. We were able out of our
own budget to purchase the kind of fire fighting equipment which