24 NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT

		Pages
	Prince George's County
	Land Records Liber T. 1733-1739 ........................................	768
	Provincial Court Judgments
	Liber D.D. No. 3 1762-1763 ....................................................	584
	Queen Anne's County
	Land Records Liber R.T. No. G 1763-1767 ..........................	392
	Senate Proceedings 1825-1826 ..........................................................	216
	Somerset County
	Land Records Liber A.B. 1705-1706 ......................................	412
	Wills Boxes 1-3 1664-1727 ....................................................	952
	Talbot County
	Judgments 1649-1700 ................................................................	352
	Testamentary Papers Boxes 48-51 1748-1750 ................................	1,358
	Miscellaneous Papers ............................................................................	26
	Photostats Laminated
	Maryland Charter — 2 copies made into booklets ....................	56
	TOTAL ......................................................................	23,242
	Parchments Pressed
	Waring Family Papers ................................................................	24

BINDING

In the Report of the Archivist for last year an account of the first
fruits of our bindery was given. In fiscal year 1953 we bound eleven vol-
umes; in fiscal year 1954, forty-eight volumes. Our progress, however, is
not quite so great as these figures would indicate. In the first place, the
binder, who had previously divided her time between that work and laminat-
ing, this year devoted full time to binding. An examination of the costs
involved disclosed that each volume bound cost about twice as much as we
have heretofore paid to a commercial shop. On the credit side though, we
must note that the books were out of use a much shorter time, they were
at all times protected in our building; moreover, the cost and dangers of
highway transportation were avoided. While we have always insured our-
selves against total loss of the record while the volume was out of the build-
ing by first preparing a microfilm copy, we cannot dodge the obvious fact
that the Hall of Records was created primarily to preserve the originals and
not photographic copies, no matter how accurate.

With all its advantages, however, we must not continue our bindery
if we cannot reduce costs. Whether we can do that depends altogether on
how skillful our operator can become. We must face the fact that ledger