Staff Present: R. Rockefeller, C. Haley, E. Papenfuse, C. Jellison, M. Brown, P. Melville

Meeting called to order at 12:32 p.m.

Introductions: Committee members and staff introduced themselves.

Phebe Jacobsen Memorial Service: Ed Papenfuse invited the Committee members to the Phebe Jacobsen Memorial Service to be held on Sunday, June 18, at the Archives. Contributions to the Archives in her memory will be used for special projects. One such donation from C. Ashley and Beverly B. Ellefson is helping finance the reproduction of Bacon's Laws of Maryland as Vol. 75 of the Archives of Maryland Online.

Name Change: The Committee voted in favor of a resolution to change its name to Reference and Research Advisory Committee to reflect its role in reference beyond the search room.

Minutes of May 10, 1999 were approved.

Administration

• Search Room: Rocky Rockefeller discussed administrative matters pertaining to reference. Policy and procedure changes, made possible by increased staff, were instituted in the search room. When the number of patrons at the circulation desk reaches three or more, the staff may request assistance from any one of the reference administrators. At lunch time on weekdays two people, staff and sometimes a volunteer, come on duty to assist researchers and perform limited record retrieval. John Lyon expressed a desire to have this service available on Saturdays and to explore the possibility of evening hours for the search room. Staff resources prevent implementation of such changes. The additional computer at circulation makes it possible for the staff to more easily instruct patrons on the use of electronic finding aids.

• Staffing: The reference managers - Rocky, Chris Haley, and Catherine Jellison - comprise the Reference Management Team for the development of policies and procedures. In the past all archivists performed reference duty in the search room. As other activities increased these staff lost their reference responsibilities. This led to the hiring of additional reference archivists with strengths in computer skills since more and more information about records is becoming available online. Unfortunately the contractual status of these employees does result in high turnover.

• Archives of Maryland Online: Developments in publications and finding aids center around web readiness and "e-nitiatives." The Archives of Maryland Online is helping fulfill the Archives' legal mandate to make records available, and at the same time making the texts searchable. The current emphasis is centered on printed materials, including the two published series of  the Archives of Maryland, annotated codes, compiled and session laws of Maryland, proceedings of the General Assembly, constitutions, and all editions of the Maryland Manual.

• Reference Services Web Site: Revisions to the reference section of the Archives web site are designed to guide researchers in locating information and records. From a page of high demand topics a researcher can link to explanatory text, finding aids for the appropriate records, and some sample documents. Supplements and additions will be based on demands for information.

• Indexes 54 and 38: Making indexes available online is a long term reference goal. Still being worked on is the scanning of Index 54, the patentee index to patent records and unpatented certificates of survey. Long term goals involve conversion of the images, approximately 68,000, to text and OCR. Even more long term is the linkage from a citation to the record itself. One current project does encompass all of these goals. Entries in Index 38, Prince George's County freedom records, will be searchable online and linked to images of the records.

• Mapping: Ed demonstrated mapping available online through the plats project for the circuit courts. He also highlighted the Bromley Atlas of Baltimore County and Strong Atlas of Queen Anne's County, both available for sale on CD.

• Register of Wills: A proposal for the future, contingent upon funding, concerns the scanning of the registers of wills historical records throughout the state. The Archives is developing a prototype with some of the Talbot County records, many of which contain handwritten entries.

• Statistics: Statistical trends for reference in FY2000 contain some surprising figures - slight increase in search room visits (6%), lower record retrieval in the search room (25%), higher microfilm usage in the search room (15%), and substantial increases in email (300%) and phone contact (150%).

• Readers and Reproductions: To meet these demands the Archives and its patrons will continue to rely heavily on the film copies of records. Through the State Treasury pay back program the Archives will purchase five additional reader printers that will have digital capacity. Reference Services has conducted experiments with digital cameras for the reproduction of records, but found none that could copy satisfactorily the pages from large record books.

• E-nitiatives: Rocky outlined several reference e-nitiatives including the acceptance of research and copy requests and credit card payments online and the delivery of copies as attachments to emails. These image attachments would be retained and made available to other researchers on a fee basis.

Departing Members: Chris recognized the departing members of the Committee - Susie Bowles, Karen Duffy Miles, Doug Hayman, and Scott MacGlashan. New members include Alice Anderson, Dianne Feldman, Steve Hales, and John Lyon.

Meeting Adjourned about 2:45.