ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 7

HALL OF RECORDS COMMISSION

The Hall of Records Commission is an ex officio body created
by Chapter 18 of the Acts of 1935 to collect and preserve the
historical records of Maryland and to encourage research and
investigation in the history of the Province and State. Since
passage of this Act, additional responsibilities and duties have
been assigned to the Hall of Records Commission and thereby to
the staff of the Hall of Records: to administer the Records Man-
agement Program for State and county governmental agencies;
to compile and distribute the MARYLAND MANUAL; and to
supervise the microfilming of current land records for its files
and for the State Department of Assessments and Taxation. The
Hall of Records has been made a depository for all publications
of State Agencies, and its staff microfilms the Proceedings of the
General Assembly at the close of each legislative day. The Hall
of Records Commission acts as the historical agency of the State.
It participates in the planning and conduct of historical cele-
brations, the restoration of monuments and houses and the search
for historical data necessary for the conduct of the State's busi-
ness. On January 25, 1967 the Archivist assumed the duties of
the Commissioner of the Land Office as Commissioner of Land
Patents. (Article 54, Chapters 1-26).

Chapter 97 of the Acts of 1970, which was approved April
15, 1970 and became effective August 1, 1970, placed the Hall of
Records Commission in the secretariat of General Services and
insofar as the Hall of Records Commission is concerned, provid-
ed further: "There is hereby created as part of the Department
of General Services a commission to be known as the Hall of
Records Commission, which shall be composed of the (Governor
of Maryland), Secretary of General Services, The State Comp-
troller, the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, the President of
The Johns Hopkins University, the President of St. John's Col-
lege, the President of the Maryland Historical Society and the
President of the Board of Trustees of the Peabody Institute of
Baltimore. The members of said commission shall serve without
compensation." (Part 1, Section 7).

This means that the Governor will appear in this report for
the last time as a member of the Hall of Records Commission.
This is a great loss as in many ways the Governor was the most