40 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT
MARYLAND MANUAL

The Maryland Manual for 1951-1952 appeared January 18, 1952.
Preparation began almost immediately thereafter for the 1953-1954 edition,
which will be distributed in December of 1953. (At this writing it is in
page proof.) Because a new Code of Public General Laws had appeared since
the publication of the last Manual, almost every legal reference in the whole
work had to be revised. In addition, every telephone number in Maryland
and the District of Columbia has been changed during the last year. The
long session of the General Assembly also made many changes in the duties
and authority of State agencies. In the past we could count on many re-
appointments of State and local officers by the Governor, but where there has
been a change in the party in power as at present in Maryland, new appoint-
ments are the rule rather than the exception.

New appointments mean changes in the text and in the index; new
agencies require changes in the governmental chart and elsewhere; new ad-
dresses and telephone numbers add to the time required to gather information
and to check it. We have also decided it would be valuable to give more in-
formation on the fiscal affairs of the State and to include the results of the
two last primaries and general elections rather than one. In the forthcoming
Manual we have continued the policy adopted several years ago of using for
illustrations pictures of capital improvements completed during the last bi-
ennium by some agency of government. They are all public buildings,
dedicated to some form of governmental service and ought to be made
known to those who pay for them. The Hall of Records is constantly being
asked to supply the charter dates for incorporated places. We decided, there-
fore, that it would be worth the time and effort to include this information
in the new Manual.

PUBLIC DOCUMENTS PROJECT

The task of collecting and servicing public documents is assigned
to the same member of the staff who is also charged with much of the
responsibility for the Maryland Manual. Since this was a year in which
a new Manual — a biennial publication — was being prepared, our attention
was necessarily diverted from the task of completing our files of documents.
The total number of State publications which did come to us, 417, was a
little more than two-thirds of the number reported last year. Of this number,
almost all were current publications, and since they will be listed in the