mately the same budget as it had in 1935. When we are no
longer able to keep abreast of this work or any additional work
which the Legislature may in the future wish to assign us, we
shall of course ask for such additional employees as we shall feel
to be necessary. Moreover, it is our hope that we shall be called
upon more and more to assist in the proper care of more recent
records. It is ultimately more economical for the State and more
satisfactory to the Archivist to provide for the proper keeping
of records while they are still in the offices of origin. It is one
thing to receive at an archival establishment the relatively few
colonial records extant and to make them available, and it is
quite another thing to handle the great masses of records which
are now being created and which will ultimately find their way
to our vaults.

In addition to these gradual changes which the passing of ten
years has brought about in the functions of the Hall of Records—
changes which the original Commission must have foreseen—
there is now a possibility that the whole purpose of this institution
may need to be re-examined in the event that the building is taken
for expansion of the Naval Academy along with the campus of the
St. John's College. Should the present building be lost, the Hall
of Records Commission will probably be asked by the Legisla-
ture to make recommendations concerning the size of the new
building, its location, the size of its staff and above all the duties
which it should perform. Maryland was the first State to pro-
vide an exclusive archival establishment for its records. It may
now have the experience of being the first State to face the neces-
sity of re-examining its archival problem.

Respectfully submitted,

MORRIS L. RADOFF,

Archivist.

HALL OF RECORDS,
Annapolis, Maryland.