ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 43

or staples. These containers are purchased out of the budget of the
Hall of Records and are provided without charge to the agencies as
they are needed. Platform and ladder trucks and a microfilm camera
and two readers for the Baltimore Center brought the total cost of
equipment for the two installations to $24,353.

The operation of the Centers is governed by rules established by
the Archivist and the Assistant Records Administrator. Records
must be controlled by records schedules before they will be accepted for
deposit. Since the records of all but a few agencies were already
governed by schedules, only a few additional ones had to be established.
However, some of the early schedules had to be amended to indicate
what record series were to be transferred and at what time. Each
State agency is responsible for moving its own records to the Center.
If requested by the agency, our personnel will supervise the packing of
records, help in making the necessary transportation arrangements, and
in special cases, provide other assistance. With a majority of the
agencies now located in the two State Office Buildings or buildings
adjacent to them, the transportation of records presents a problem
for only a few agencies and for the institutions of the State, all of which
are located elsewhere. Center personnel service the records from the
time they are received until they are destroyed under authority con-
tained in the retention schedule. This service includes shelving the
records, maintaining the necessary control forms, microfilming records
to be preserved on film, providing reference to the records, and super-
vising their destruction. Information from records or the records
themselves may be requested by agency officials by telephone, in writ-
ing, or in person. In the ten months during which the Annapolis
Center was in operation, 1,363 cubic feet of records were accepted for
deposit, while 1,710 cubic feet of records were transferred to the Balti-
more depository during the single month of June.

The increased responsibility occasioned by the acquisition of the
Reconds Centers necessitated changes in the duties of most of the
records management personnel. The Division's microfilm staff be-
came responsible for servicing the records in the Annapolis depository
as well as microfilming records designated for preservation on film.
The Public Records Examiners, who assisted the Assistant Records
Administrator in planning the Centers, organizing their operation, and
effecting the transfer of records to them, participate in their adminis-
tration. Since the Centers were operated during the period covered
by this report without additional personnel, although a staff of three for