ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 35

to another State agency for attention. Because correspondence is much more
costly than circulating original records, we have found it necessary to limit
our efforts to consulting indexes or single documents. We never attempt to
trace a family line, nor do we evaluate a record for genealogical purposes.
In spite of these self-imposed restrictions our correspondence has grown
steadily through the years as the figures given here below will witness. Quer-
ies came this year from all of the forty-eight States, the District of Columbia,
Canada, England and Spain.

Fiscal year 1951 .................... 1,026 letters written.

Fiscal year 1952 .................... 1,190 letters written.

Fiscal year 1953 .................... 1,293 letters written.

We are continually called on to answer questions for newspapers, his-
torians, attorneys and others over the telephone, but this is a service which
we find it difficult to measure.

PHOTOCOPYING

The new Microfilm Division of the Hall of Records was created for
certain special purposes described elsewhere in this report. Our photographic
facilities include, in addition, the excellent equipment in our photographic
laboratory and the services of one photographer. This department does micro-
filming, photostating and photographing for genealogists who need copies of
wills, attorneys who want certified reproductions of the engrossed laws,
and historians who want the full text of the original executive papers ab-
stracted in one of our Calendars. All these are listed below under the category
of "paid orders." "No charge" orders include work done for the Hall of
Records, for the Court of Appeals, for the Department of Budget and Pro-
curement and other State agencies.

Whether work for other State agencies should be handled under some
sort of reimbursable agreement is now under study. Certainly the present
system is far from satisfactory. For example, all work done for the Depart-
ment of Law is done without cost of any kind to that agency; the Depart-
ment of Budget and Procurement provides photostat paper; Cecil County
paid for the binding but not for the photostating of the two index volumes
listed below.

Very little of the microfilming reported here is done on order. Its chief
purpose is to permit us to add materials which we need and which are un-