LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

October 10, 1951
To THE HONORABLE

THE HALL OF RECORDS COMMISSION
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

Gentlemen:

In the past this letter has contained a summary of our accomplish-
ments for the fiscal year just ended and a statement of our hopes and
expectations for the fiscal year current. This time I have given, in the
introduction to each chapter, a comparison of the work done this year with
that of the two previous years when that was feasible so that our progress,
or lack of it, might be evident to you. I have done this because I feel it
necessary to reserve this space to point out some of the problems which
have only now arisen and which promise to become more difficult if not
presently solved.

We have, first of all, failed to maintain the uniformity in record dis-
posal procedures which we had achieved with great patience over the years.
You will find in the section devoted to "Acts of Assembly and Opinions
of the Attorney General" that the Disposal Act of 1949, which required
all the records of a court of record to be kept permanently, was in fact
amended to permit one Clerk of Court, under certain conditions, to dispose
of his original Land Records. You will note in the same section that the
general authority of the Hall of Records Commission and the Board of
Public Works in the matter of records disposal has been seriously chal'
lenged in the case of Baltimore City records. You will find, too, in the
discussion of "Scheduling and Disposal of Records" that the Hall of
Records, having expended a good deal of study and time on the record
problem of several agencies, finds itself unable to require that its recom-
mendations be followed.

This is not to say that there has been no progress in records manage-
ment and disposal—on the contrary there has been a great deal What has
happened is that the total number of solutions demanded has increased
enormously, far beyond our ability to cope with them. In part this is due
to the fact that since 1939 the Hall of Records has added only one ful-'time