44 TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT

the Baltimore Center has been authorized for fiscal year 1960, our accom-
plishments in some other areas of the program are below those of
previous years.

Control of the totality of State and county records continues as a
goal, although less attention was devoted to this phase of our work
than in years past. T wen ty-two schedules governing 262 record
series were established for State agencies which were moving into new
quarters. Also a number of schedules, approved during the first years
of the program, were changed to permit the transfer of the records
which they controlled into the Centers. The tangible results of our
county records program were less encouraging. Nine schedules con-
taining 117 record items were established; however, two laws enacted
by the 1959 General Assembly should materially assist us in releasing
badly needed records storage space in the county courthouses. This
legislation permits conditional contracts of sale and trial magistrate's
papers deposited with the Clerks of Court to be destroyed after a fixed
number of years.

Reduction in the bulk of records through the substitution of micro-
film copies for the originals remains an integral part of our records
program. As stated in past reports, microfilming is usually employed
when the original would otherwise be retained indefinitely or when a
security copy is considered necessary. With depositories now available
for the storage of records, proposals for future retirement by micro-
filming will receive even closer scrutiny. This year, 1,256,044 ex-
posures were made of records for three State agencies and are con-
tained on 220 reels of 16mm. microfilm. The records thus retired,
as well as those destroyed without filming, amounted to 10,418 cubic
feet, the equivalent of the space occupied by 1,736 letter-size filing
cabinets. As in the past, we have continued to dispose of these un-
needed records to various waste paper companies on a contractual basis.
This year the State received $2,869.77 from the sale of waste paper, of
which $1,596.59 was returned to the General Funds of the State. The
remainder reverted to the Department of Employment Security which
operates entirely on federal funds.

In addition to the retirement of records by microfilming, we again
provided the Commissioner of the Land Office with microfilm copies
of the currently recorded county land records and the State Tax Com-
mission with copies of current deeds for its tax map program. We
now film these records in five counties and supervise this work and