ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 11

ARCHIVAL ADMINISTRATION

We had only one loss in our archival staff this year but this was a griev-
ous one. Roger Thomas who came to the Hall of Records March 16, 1942,
died June 16, 1958. For many years Mr. Thomas had been in charge of the
research room where he became known to our clients—those who came in
person as well as those with whom he corresponded—as an incredibly patient
and obliging civil servant, a rara avis indeed! To the other members of the
staff of the Hall of Records he was a councillor in local history and genealogy;
to the Archivist he was also a friend of long standing: Roger Thomas and I
first met at the University of Texas when he was a very young instructor and
I was a very young freshman in his classes. All of us will miss him.

The General Assembly of 1958 accepted a new salary scale plan which
provided for salary increases through the State service. In the case of the Hall
of Records some of these increases were only tokens but others, especially in
the Records Management Division, were substantial. Unfortunately, funds
to implement this new scale will not be available, according to present plans,
until May of 1959. There were also several gratifying upward ^classifications
but since they did not become effective until the beginning of the new fiscal
year they need not be described here.

HISTORICAL, ARCHIVAL AND
RECORDS MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATIONS

The annual meeting of The Society of American Archivists, held in
Columbus, Ohio, October 3 and 4, 1957, was attended by Mr. Skordas, Mr.
Beach and Mr. Thomas.

During fiscal year 1958, members of the Hall of Records staff were
active otherwise in the work of The Society of American Archivists. The
Archivist was a member of the Council, chairman of the Nominating Com-
mittee, a member of the Committee on Professional Standards and Training,
and a member of the Waldo Gifford Leland Prize Award Committee. Mr.
Skordas served as chairman of the Committee on Preservation Methods and
as a member of the Committee on State Records; Mr. Beach was chairman
of the Committee on Records Management.

The Archivist and the Assistant Archivist attended the annual meeting
of the Maryland Court Clerks Association, held at Ocean City, August 16
and 17, 1957.

On September 4, 1957, Mr. Beach and Mr. Straubinger visited the Del-
aware Hall of Records to discuss with the State Archivist the method used
in reproducing corporation charters from microfilm copies.

Mr. Skordas and Mr. Beach attended a special presentation of Recordak
precision systems for microfilming, September 10, 1957, at Washington, D. C.