ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 27

Treasury, the Department of Budget and Procurement, and the Commis-
sioner of the Land Office, an agreement was made to have positive copies of
current deeds made by the microfilm processors and sent directly to the Tax
Map Division of the State Tax Commission.

The filming arrangement for this program is on a monthly basis in
Anne Arundel and Prince George's Counties, and twice a year in the smaller
counties — three months before the tax finality date and on the date itself.
When the film is sent to the processors by the Microfilm Division, a list of
the reels of film and of the record volumes filmed is sent to the Tax Map
Division for identification purposes. Montgomery County is not included in
this program, and the State Tax Commission has made special arrangements
with Baltimore City and Baltimore County. Positive copies of 127 reels
filmed by the Hall of Records were sent to the Tax Map Division this year.
This program has greatly increased the volume of land record filming
planned for this year because in addition to the land records for the fiscal
year 1952, which we had agreed to do for the Land Office, we have had to
do those for the fiscal year 1953 on a semi-current basis. Fortunately, this
situation cannot recur.

Within the past several years a number of the counties have started
projection print recording. Hall & McChesney, Inc., of Syracuse, New York,
offers a service whereby the agency films on a weekly basis all documents to
be recorded, sends the film to Syracuse for processing and receives enlarge-
ments for its permanent records. After the prints are sent to the counties,
the original microfilm copy is sent to the Hall of Records. Here it is
checked and labelled and deposited in the Land Office. A positive microfilm
copy of all deed volumes is sent directly to the Tax Map Division by the pro-
cessor. Although some of these counties had to be covered by the Microfilm
Division during fiscal year 1953, this will be true in the future on a super-
visory basis only.

Some counties owning cameras are provided with film once a year
by the Hall of Records for the filming of their abstracts of releases, which
are not included in the projection print program. Others find it more con-
venient to have their filming done by our photographers.

The following list gives the counties which own cameras and the dates
they were purchased:

Charles County ............ September 1, 1950

Caroline County ............ November 18, 1952