10 NINTH ANNUAL REPORT

continues to serve as a member of the Council and also as a member
of the Archival Research and the Program Committees. Mr. Skordas
was elected to membership.

Both the Archivist and Mr. Thomas became members of the Mary-
land State Library Association, and Mr, Thomas attended both semi-
annual meetings.

Among the distinguished visitors to the Hall of Records during the
year were Professor J. G. DeRoulhac Hamilton of the University of
North Carolina, Professor George Oscar Russell of Ohio State Uni-
versity and Mr. Harold Donaldson Eberlein. author.

Many post-war projects for the construction of archival establish-
ments are now being initiated and the Archivist was called upon fre-
quently during the year for plans of the building, analyses of policy,
details of procedure, salary scales and so forth. Among the States
making such requests were New York, Nevada, Michigan, Washing-
ton, Pennsylvania and Colorado. While the Hall of Records has many
qualities unsurpassed elsewhere, it has certain faults too which are not
quite so obvious but which should not be repeated as, for example, the
design of our shelves and our lack of an elevator in the stacks. The
Archivist was especially careful to point out these faults emphasizing
those which cannot be rectified later. A photostat file of drawings of
the building has been deposited with the Architectural Committee of
the Society of American Archivists at the National Archives.

CIRCULATION

Circulation of archival materials, which began to decline immedi-
ately after Pearl Harbor, started gradually to increase during the year.
The number of items circulated during the months of March, May and
June was quite large foreshadowing, perhaps, an increasing volume for
the succeeding months. The total number of items withdrawn reached
3,515 as compared with 2,051 for the previous fiscal year (nine months)
and 3,751 for the year 1941*1942, the kst full-length year before the
present one and also the kst year of which some part fell in the pre-
war period.

Tlie number of searchers also increased from 439 to 614, but
again this figure was below that of the fiscal year 1941-1942 when