ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 43

to their value also must be considered. Fortunately, we have received excellent
cooperation both from officials of agencies in which surveys have been con-
ducted and from other officials who occasionally have been asked to assist us
in this important task.

Since the beginning of the program, we have established 270 schedules for
the records of seventy-four State agencies and institutions. These schedules
now control 1,650 separate record series or approximately ninety per cent of
the holdings of all State agencies. This aspect of our work has been completed
or is well-advanced in most of the major departments and institutions of the
State which, because of their functions, accumulate large quantities of records
each year. There is considerable work which remains to be done, however,
especially in smaller agencies and in the licensing and examining boards, before
the totality of State records is controlled by schedule. As new agencies are
established or the duties of existing ones are changed by legislation, additional
schedules, of course, will be necessary.

Encouraging progress also has been made in establishing controls over the
records of county and bi-county agencies. There is a basic difference between
the State and local records programs. Participation in the latter is voluntary,
but most county officials are cognizant of the need for improved records con-
trol and are eager to cooperate. Work was begun experimentally in one county
in 1954, but it was not until 1956 that an intensive effort was made to order
the records in the county courthouses. Then attention was given to the records
subject to disposition in the offices of the Clerks of Court and the Registers
of Wills in the several counties. While this task was being pushed toward
completion, we were asked to review the records of other major county offices.
As a result, we also have been able to establish control over the rcords of the
County Commissioners, Treasurers, and Supervisors of Assessments in Anne
Arundel, Caroline, Kent, Queen Anne's, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico, and
Worcester Counties. The records of two bi-county agencies, the Washington
Suburban Sanitary Commission and the Maryland-National Capital Park and
Planning Commission, are also controlled by schedule. During the period
covered by this Report, 188 schedules governing 1,379 separate record series
have been established for local agencies of government.

As a direct result of the schedules issued since 1953, a total of 42,072
cubic feet of storage and filing space has been released in the offices of the
several State and county agencies. This is the equivalent of the space occupied
by 7,012 letter-size filing cabinets. For the most part, the original record was
destroyed as soon as it was no longer needed, but in a number of instances,
microfilm copies were substituted for the original before destruction. Reduc-
tion in the bulk of records by microfilming has been particularly useful because
of our lack of facilities for the intermediate storage of records. However, it has
usually been employed when the original would otherwise be retained indefi-
nitely. As the record centers which are now being readied in the new State