16 FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT

The last fiscal year was the first full year of activity of the Depart'
ment of Information. As we had expected, this new agency of the State
relieved us—along with other older agencies—of the burden of replying
to the thousand and one questions asked by school children, prospective
tourists, history teachers and so forth. We can now with a clear con-
science restrict the services we give to persons who require genealogical,
historical and archival information of a kind which we alone are equipped
to render. As a result the number of letters which we answered did not
increase in the same proportion during the year as the number of visitors
or the number of documents circulated. There was an increase, though,
however small, but since these letters were of a more specialized nature,
the number alone is not an exact measure of the increased burden on our
time.

Number of letters written Fiscal Year 1947........ 1,007

Number of letters written Fiscal Year 1948........ 1,137

Number of letters written Fiscal Year 1949........ 1,150

These letters were written to persons in forty-three states, the District
of Columbia, Cuba, England, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Uruguay and
French Morocco.

The Hall of Records finds itself more and more called upon to answer
questions by telephone. These questions are of mixed quality, ranging
from the serious inquiries of other agencies of the State government to
the trivial demands of radio fans who are intrigued by the prises offered
for the correct answers to preposterous questions about the history of
Annapolis. There were an especially large number of ridiculous questions
this year due no doubt to the celebration of the Annapolis Tercentenary,
but there were also eighty-three calls for legitimate purposes.

AIDS TO RESEARCH

Work progressed during the year on the Calendar of the Red Books,
the last of the so-called "Rainbow Series" to receive this attention. I stated
in my last Annual Report that it would not be possible to complete any
part of this work during the year, and that proved to be the case; we are
confident, however, that we shall have one of the three contemplated
volumes printed by the end of the fiscal year 1950. Work was also resumed