ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 15

PUBLICATIONS

Twenty-Second Annual Report of the Archivist of the Hall of Records.

This report, covering the fiscal year from July 1, 1956, to June 30, 1957,
appeared March 31, 1958. Like its predecessors, it was prepared primarily for
the information of the Hall of Records Commission to supplement its knowl-
edge of the work of the Hall of Records derived from meetings of the Com-
mission, reports of the State Auditor and other sources. The usefulness of these
reports to members of the staff, other institutions and researchers, while
obvious, is only incidental.
Maryland Manual, 1957-1958.

This edition of the State's biennial manual, the sixth undertaken by the
Hall of Records, was distributed February 5, 1958. As in previous editions,
efforts were made to improve its usefulness. It is, of course, not always pos-
sible to include additional materials which certain users ask for; but where pos-
sible, if the cost is not too great, we will accede to such requests. For example,
in this edition we included financial materials for two years rather than for
one. We also made a drastic change in the arrangement of county information.
In earlier editions all county officers were arranged by groups; for example,
all clerks of court were listed together. This method of presentation was
adequate ten years ago but the rapid change in the form of county govern-
ment, the proliferation of officers and agencies, especially in the larger counties,
made it impossible to consider any other arrangement except the treatment
of each county separately. This was a difficult and expensive change and it
added fifty-five pages to the volume of the book. We believe it was worth-
while.

In the production of a book so full of names, addresses, facts and figures
it is inevitable that a certain number of errors be overlooked. This year we
adopted the procedure of printing a list of errata and addenda which was
distributed to all official users of the Manual. We believe that this too is a
necessary change in procedure, but it is also expensive. Moreover, since the
Secretary of State did not agree as to its usefulness the cost of printing and
mailing had to come from the budget of the Hall of Records.

Calendar of Maryland State Papers Number 5, Executive Miscellanea:
Publication No. 11 of the Hall of Records Commission. April 23, 1958.

In my last Annual Report I pointed out that we hoped to complete one
more volume of calendars, bringing to an end the series which we first under-
took in 1941. This volume contains those items from the Blue Books which
were omitted by design from the Calendar of the Bank Stock Papers, about
twenty papers from the Red Books which somehow were overlooked, some
other materials from the Rainbow Series Portfolios, and a large group of
Executive papers of the early period which were never, for some reason now
obscure, included in the Rainbow Series. We are confident that this volume
was worth doing and we are equally as confident that everything now in our
possession which deserved calendaring has been completed. It was an unhappy
coincidence that Roger Thomas who had collaborated in our first calendar