ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 2 5

REPAIR AND BINDING

As in the past two or three years, the full time of only one employee was
last year devoted to the repair and preservation of our records. However, since
her retirement in 1949, Mrs. Clifton Moss has continued to give us one day
of volunteer work each week. Unfortunately, because of illness Mrs. Moss was
only able to contribute about 800 pages to the total of materials laminated
during the fiscal year. In spite of this, the total output of the repair room was
about a thousand pages more than last year. The total was 25,954 pages as
compared with 24,680 in fiscal year 1955. In addition to the materials lamin-
ated, there were others which were only washed or pressed, parchments stret-
ched, and maps backed and hinged. The records laminated this year were in
large part the probate records of the Colonial Prerogative (probate) Court
and the probate, land, marriage, and court judgment records of the following
counties: Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Caroline, Cecil, Dorchester, Kent, Prince
George's, Somerset, Talbot and Worcester.

For the most part, the volumes bound this year were those laminated
either this year or last. Fewer volumes were completed than the year before,
sixty-two against sixty, and less of the miscellaneous work which from time
to time a bookbinder is called on to do. While, of course, our disappointment
is real, we are encouraged by the fact the loss of production was due to a pro-
tracted illness suffered by the bookbinder. Since she had recovered by the end
of the fiscal year, we have every expectation that this setback is only a tem-
porary one.

Formerly the Annual Report of the Archil ist listed separately each item
repaired and bound. In the case of the repaired or laminated materials this
detailed listing had a dual purpose: (1) it served in lieu of any other record
of which materials had been laminated and exactly when, and (2) it provided
a testing date for others who were also undertaking the new process of lamin-
ating. The first purpose is now cared for by convenient and less expensive
internal records, the second is no longer needed because we have now built up
over fifteen years a large enough quantity of material to serve any testing
purpose. There was never any real reason for listing materials which had been
bound; it was done because binding was a new function of the repair room
and we simply followed the pattern we had adopted for the other work of
that department.