ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 5

Among the Maryland materials of great historical value now in the cus-
tody of the Hall of Records the Commission chose for its first publi-
cation Liber A of the records of the Prince George's County Court.
The Archivist was instructed to request the necessary funds for publi-
cation from the Legislature.

A resolution was adopted requesting the Council of the Maryland
Historical Society to transfer to the Hall of Records the large number
of Executive papers which the Society had preserved in its vaults since
the turn of the century when they had been saved from destruction at
Annapolis. The members of the Commission at this time inspected the
new equipment which had been installed during the year, and they were
shown some of the work of the staff accomplished during the same
period. The meeting closed with informal discussion led by Mr. Tawes
on how the Hall of Records might be of further use in the preservation
of certain governmental records and the destruction of others. Subse-
quent conferences between Mr. Tawes and the Archivist have resulted
in several concrete proposals: a bill will be introduced in the next Legis-
lature providing that records whose destruction or preservation are not
specifically required by law may be turned over by the custodian to a
Commission which in each case shall be composed of a member of the
Board of Public Works, the Custodian, and the Archivist. This Com-
mission may decide that records should be preserved, either in the office
of the custodian or at the Hall of Records, or it may order their destruc-
tion. Furthermore, no custodian shall be permitted to destroy any
records without consultation with this Commission unless the destruction
is specifically provided for by law.

In the case of records to be removed from local depositories to
the Hall of Records and replaced by photostatic copies in the offices of
the custodians, the Comptroller has in the past granted special funds to
the Hall of Records from the excess fees of the officer for this purpose.
However, in some of the older and more historical counties such an
excess of fees does not exist. On the suggestion of the Hall of Records
Commission the Comptroller and the Archivist have agreed that the
solution to this problem is the creation of a revolving fund drawn from
the excess fees of all the counties so that the preservation of historical
records need not be dependent on the amount of business transacted in
any single governmental office today.

The sympathetic understanding of Mr. Tawes and his deputy Mr.
Joseph O'C. McCusker in these and other matters relating to the financial
affairs of the Hall of Records has proved of great assistance to the Com-