40                                     LAWS OF MARYLAND                            [CH. 43

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland,
That Sections 5(a), 8, 9, and 11(a) of Article 54 of the Annotated
Code of Maryland (1964 Replacement Volume and 1967 Supple-
ment), title "Hall of Records," subtitle "Hall of Records Commis-
sion," be and they are hereby repealed and re-enacted, with amend-
ments, to read as follows:

5.

(a) Papers, records and documents, now in the courthouses of
this State, which were made prior to April 28th 1788, the date of
the adoption of the Constitution of the United States by the State
of Maryland, shall be transferred as soon as practicable after June
1, 1945, to the Hall of Records Commission, which is hereby made
the official custodian of such papers, records and documents, with
full power to certify the same as provided in Section [177] 7.
Every clerk of court, register of wills, or other public official, now
having custody of said papers, records and documents, is hereby
directed to transfer the same to said Hall of Records Commission
and upon making such transfer, every such clerk, register of wills
or other official is hereby relieved from any duties or responsibili-
ties in connection therewith.

8.

If the Commission shall decline to accept any original papers,
official books, records, documents or files offered to it under the
provisions of Section [177] 7, then the custodian thereof, with
the written approval of the Board of Public Works, is authorized
and empowered to destroy the same. After such records are de-
stroyed, the custodian thereof shall file with the Hall of Records
a list of all papers, books, documents and files destroyed and a
certificate of destruction. Such lists shall be retained in the custody
of the Archivist and shall be available at reasonable times to in-
spection by the members of the public. Nothing in this section
shall authorize the destruction of (a) papers, books, documents
or files which have been in custody for a period of less than three
years or such other period as may be expressly prescribed by statute,
(b) public records expressly required by statute to be maintained
permanently, except in those cases where the original record has
been photographed, photocopied, or microphotographed in accord-
ance with the provisions of Section [181] 11 of this article, pro-
vided that the copy or reproduction of the original record be avail-
able upon request in the same manner as the original record, (c)
permanent books of account, (d) the records of any court of rec-
ord in this State, (e) the land records recorded by the respective
clerks of the circuit court for the several counties and the clerk
of the Superior Court of Baltimore City; but old records of which
accurate transcriptions have been made and placed in use, under
the terms of Article 26, Section 17, and the "housekeeping" records
or the records of internal management of the offices of clerks of
court and registers of wills shall not be considered "records of a
court" for the purpose of this section and Sections [179] 9 and
[180] 10 and shall be subject to disposal as described above, pro-
vided, however, that the books, accounts, and records pertaining
to the financial operations of any agency or department, officers,
boards and commissions of the State of Maryland, and of all clerks