92 TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT

enormous series. At this writing we have already begun to work in
Washington County and we are hopeful of a beginning in Charles
County.

Counties Completed Previous to Fiscal Year 1960

Anne Arundel ................... 1851-1949

Baltimore ....................... 1851-1949

Calvert ......................... 1882-1952 (earlier records burnt)

Caroline ........................ 1851-1950

Frederick ........................ 1851-1949

Howard ......................... 1851-1949

Prince George's .................. 1851-1949

Queen Anne's .................... 1851-1949

Counties Completed in Fiscal Year 1960

Carroll ......................... 1851-1949

Wicomico ....................... 1867-1949 (Wicomico created in 1867)

CIRCULATION

The number of working visitors at the Hall of Records was
approximately the same for fiscal year 1960 as for the previous year,
1,731 as compared with 1,736. Both years fell well below the 1,933
who came in fiscal year 1958, our busiest year. The number of separate
items circulated also declined from 12,045 to 10,266. There is no
ready explanation for these variations from year to year. Nor is a sta-
tistic of this kind of real importance. It is somehow encouraging though
that the trend over the years has been toward higher totals in spite of
occasional but temporary setbacks.

Perhaps one reason for the decline last year in the use of records
is the increase in the number of queries answered by mail. The figures
here are, for 1960, 1,643; for 1959, 1,467. The increase in the number
of letters written would have been even greater were it not for the fact
that beginning in March 1960, we stopped writing covering letters
for photographic reproductions which had been ordered and paid for.
This is a courtesy which we did not wish to abandon, but it was too
costly to continue. We are now considering the substitution of some
kind of form letter to be used in replying to relatively simple requests
for information. Perhaps we shall come to that too.

The list of records most frequently circulated which follows in-
cludes every series used more than twenty times, a purely arbitrary
figure. The list will indicate how useful the county records have become