TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT

WASHINGTON, DIOCESE OF, Journal of the Sixty-Fourth Annual Convention of the
Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Washington Held in the Church
of St. Timothy, 3601 Alabama Ave., S. E., Washington 20, D. C., May 4,
1959, Washington, 1959. Gift.

WEST VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY, West Virginia History,
Vol. XXI, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 1959-1960, Charleston, 1959-1960. Gift.

WOLFE, MRS. CLIFTON, Welch-Welsh-Walsh, Vol. I, Nos. 1, 2, 1959, Knoxville,
Tenn., 1959-1960. Gift.

RECORDS MANAGEMENT

In the Report of the Archivist for last year, an account of the
establishment and early operation of both the Annapolis and the Balti-
more Record Centers was given. The acquisition of these central deposi-
tories for the care of non-current records made it possible for us to
direct considerable attention toward attaining the objectives for which
the Centers were established.

Emphasis was placed on reducing the quantity of non-current
records retained in the offices and storage areas of State agencies in
order to lower the cost of maintaining these records and to establish
more effective control over them. The transfer to the Record Centers of
inactive records from prime office space and equipment not only released
equipment for reuse, but contributed to efficient office operation. To
achieve maximum results in those agencies which accumulate an un-
usually large volume of fiscal records each year, we established a policy
with the approval of the State Auditor permitting the transfer of these
records prior to their audit. This policy has proven beneficial to the
agencies because of the space and equipment released, and to the
auditors because the records are more accessible for audit purposes.

The Record Centers also enabled us to eliminate many of the indi-
vidual storage areas for non-current records. Although some progress
had been made in previous years in clearing these areas and improving
the conditions under which records were maintained, effective control
of the records was almost impossible. In the future, the records of State
agencies will be moved from the offices to the Centers as they become
inactive. Unfortunately, we were unable to eliminate all the individual
storage areas maintained by State agencies in the State Office Building.
We were pleased, however, to be able to clear and to dose perma-
nently the Budget and Procurement warehouse as a depository for
records, because storage conditions there were especially poor. With the
assistance of personnel from agencies with records stored there, 4,605
cubic feet of records were removed from the warehouse. Of this