32 ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT

OPERATION OF THE DISPOSAL ACT

In the matter of proper disposition of non-current records, we
were again handicapped by lack of space. For example, on February
18, 1946, the Clerk of the Baltimore City Court offered for deposit
at the Hall of Records about 275 volumes of dockets of the Justices
of the Peace for Baltimore City dating from 1857 to 1912. These
were records which could not be destroyed, yet if we had accepted
them, we would have run the risk of using space which may be need-
ed for the early county records which we are required by law to ac-
cept. Consequently, the Archivist requested that for the time being
the records be retained in Baltimore. He suggested two develop-
ments which might provide the answer to the Clerk's problem of
lack of storage space; (1) the proposed modernization of the Bal-
timore City Courthouse, (2) the acquisition of a State Office build-
ing in Baltimore. It is possible also that the space required at the
Hall of Records for county records may not be as great as antici-
pated, in which case the dockets could be transferred here.

A similar problem arose when, on April 12, 1946, the Depart-
ment of Tidewater Fisheries requested permission to destroy a large
quantity of non-current records dating in the early twentieth cen-
tury which were stored in the basement of the State Office Building
in Annapolis. We examined the material and found that most of it
was of such a nature that it should be preserved. Once again, the
Archivist had no choice but to urge that the Department retain the
records until the State could provide storage facilities for them.

On January 8, 1946, the Unemployment Compensation Board
of Maryland offered for deposit certain of its records dating in the
year 1940. The materials offered were similar to those which had
been refused and destroyed in previous years. This latest offer was
also rejected, but, as yet, we have not received notice of the destruc-
tion of the records.

LIBRARY

It is gratifying to report that the assembling, arranging and
cataloguing of our printed materials, which began during the latter
part of 1944, were completed during the past year. In addition, all
new accessions were catalogued as received, so that we have now