ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 15

collection of Anne Arundel County Testamentary Papers was almost
entirely their work.

Salaries of all these temporary workers are paid by the Federal
Government, but the projects are not therefor without cost to us.
An additional clerical staff of twenty-five or thirty requires a good
deal of the time of the regular staff for proper supervision. In
addition, the cost of folders, boxes, index cards, typewriters and
typewriter supplies is at least according to our standards, enormous.
However, after two full years of the experiment, we are convinced
that it is well worth the cost. We are hopeful that we shall be able
to continue during the coming year on as large a scale as in the past
although the extraordinary increase in the price of stationery and
office supplies will make the sacrifice even greater.

CIRCULATION

During the fiscal year 1939-1940 a good deal of money was spent
in equipping the small room over the Research Room for the use of
searchers who wished to collaborate, to typewrite, or to dictate,
and to provide shelves in the index room so that all of the general
indexes formerly kept in the stacks might be moved out for the
convenience of searchers. Additional shelves have been bought this
year to be used in the future for other general indexes recently
arrived or to be received in the neap future and to be placed in the
large space now occupied by the 19-volume index to Testamentary
Proceedings, which is to be withdrawn as soon as its contents have
been placed on cards. Otherwise no new equipment has been pro-
vided and in the coming year it is not expected that any will be
required.

A new call slip for use in the Research Room was provided to
replace the old one which had proved to be too cumbersome for our
needs. The old card, modeled after those used in the Library of
Congress asked, for example, that the searcher give the purpose of
his research every time he asked for a record. This request at a
small State institution like the Hall of Records proved at best to
be time-consuming and annoying both to the searchers and the
staff, and at worst it inspired some more or less heated defenses of
the rights of the individual in a Democracy and especially of the
taxpayer in the Maryland Free State. The Archivist yielded after