LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

October 25, 1948
To THE HONORABLE

HALL OF RECORDS COMMISSION
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

Gentlemen:

You will find in the following pages a detailed account of the work
of the Hall of Records for the fiscal year 1948. Since this report is for
our thirteenth year, there has been time for all of the work at the Hall
of Records to fall into fixed categories. Moreover, we have had so much
experience in each category that our product is uniform and characteris-
tic. The only obvious measure, therefore, of the success of any year's
work is quantity. Judged by this criterion we have had a good year. Our
repair room and photographic laboratory have had their best year, the
number of counties from which we received records was greater than
ever before, we added two good works to our list of publications, and
we were more active than ever before in the control of modern non-
current records still in the creating offices. We did not add so many
finding aids as in some other years because the need for typists in our
publication program prevented. The use of our records by searchers
remained about the same, but, of course, we have no control over this
part of our work. We must be satisfied that we have more records in
condition to be used and more finding aids to help those who would
use them.

In addition to what we have come to consider our normal and
proper activities, we added several projects during the course of the
year. An act of the 1947 General Assembly requires every State agency
to deposit at the Hall of Records one copy of each of its current pub-
lications. These publications have been catalogued, and, in addition,
we have begun to gather a complete file of such publications because
none is available for the use of the State in Annapolis. Where we are
not able to find originals, we shall fill in with microfilm. At the request
of Governor Lane the Hall of Records undertook a complete re-editing
of the Maryland Manual for 1948-1949, and this work has just ap-
peared. We were also called upon to assist in the creation of a new
State agency, the "Department of Information," whose work is des-
cribed in the special section of this report written by the first director
of this agency.