The National Archives and Records Service continuously publishes items of interest to the historian, genealogist, and general reader. Previous publications are listed in the leaflet Select List of Publications of the National Archives and Records Service. Unless otherwise indicated, the new publications described below can be purchased from the Publications Sales Branch (NATS), National Archives (GSA), Washington, DC 20408.

Recent publications include the Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the National Capital Planning Commission, Preliminary Inventory no. 175; volume 1 of the Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the U.S. Army Continental Commands, 1821-1920, Preliminary Inventory no. 172; the Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, Washington Headquarters, Preliminary Inventory no. 174; Welcome to the National Archives, General Information Leaflet no. 25; and Select Audiovisual Records: Indians in the United States. These publications are free.

A limited number of copies of the study User Evaluations of Microfilm Readers for Archival and Manuscript Materials are available at no charge.

A new list of collections, entitled Historical Materials in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, is now available. The booklet lists manuscript, microfilm, audiovisual, and

oral history holdings. Copies are free from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY 12538.

The National Audiovisual Center has revised its Directory of U.S. Government Audiovisual Personnel, a listing of more than thirteen hundred people in more than forty different departments, bureaus, and offices of the federal government involved in audiovisual activities. Copies of the new Directory may be purchased by sending a check for $2.00 made payable to National Archives Trust Fund to the National Audiovisual Center, Washington, DC 20409. Please request National Archives Publication 73-38, NACI/007.

A fifteen-year cumulation of Laws Affected Tables for 1956-1970, covered in volumes 70 through 84 of the United States Statutes at Large, has been compiled by the Office of the Federal Register. It replaces the ten-year cumulation of tables contained in the United States Statutes at Large Tables of Laws Affected Volumes 70-79 (1956-65).

The 775-page book carries about thirtyfour thousand references that tabulate all prior laws and other federal instruments that were amended, repealed, or otherwise patently affected by the provisions of public laws enacted during the fifteen-year period, 1956 to 1970. Some laws enacted during the period affected general legislation passed as early as 1787 and treaties dating back to 1819. The volume includes a comprehen

sive index to the popular names of the acts affected.

The book is available from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402, for $8.15 domestic postpaid, $7.50 at the GPO Bookstore.

The Federal Register introduced two new features with the issue dated March 14, 1973. The "Weekly List of Public Laws" lists every Wednesday public bills enacted by Congress and approved by the president. The law number, date of approval, and the U.S. Statutes citation are included. The second feature, published in the final issue of each month, is a list of agencies that published documents in the Federal Register during the month. This list is designed to assist readers in locating pertinent documents published in the Federal Register during periods when subject indexes are not yet available.

Distribution stocks of the Information Retrieval Handbook are now available. The 132-page publication, the third in a series of handbooks on managing information retrieval published by the Office of Records Management, provides guidance in determining when information retrieval systems should be used and how to select the right methods and equipment. Federal government personnel can requisition copies for $.60 each from the Federal Supply Service. The federal stock number is 7610-042-8762. Others can obtain copies for $1.25 from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402. The catalog number is GS4.6: IN3/2.

The National Archives and Statistical Research, edited by Meyer H. Fishbein, has been published by Ohio University Press. It is the second book in a series of reports on conferences held semiannually by the

National Archives and Records Service. United States Polar Exploration, edited by Herman R. Friis, was released in 1972 and a third volume, The American Territorial System, edited by John Porter Bloom, will be published later this year. All are priced at $10.00 and may be ordered directly from Ohio University Press, Athens, OH 45701.

Microfilm Publications

Descriptive Commentaries from the Medical Histories of Posts (M903) consists of the descriptive parts of 234 volumes of post medical histories. The descriptive section is devoted mainly to the locality and history of the post; a description of the post; the geology, botany, and zoology of the vicinity; and miscellaneous matters, such as water supply and ethnology.

Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Soldiers Who Served from 1784 to 1811 (M905) reproduces a jacket-envelope for each soldier, which typically contains card abstracts of entries relating to the soldier as found in original muster rolls, payrolls, receipt rolls, returns, and lists. These military service records of soldiers who served in the various Indian campaigns, insurrections, and disturbances occurring between 1784 and 1811 are arranged under the designations "U.S. Organizations," "State Organizations," and "Territorial Organizations."

Virginia Half Pay and Other Related Revolutionary War Pension Application Files (M910) reproduces 279 pension application files based on military and naval service in the revolutionary war, except for a few that pertain to veterans of the Mexican, Indian, and Civil Wars. These pension files differ from the main series of revolutionary war pension files in that they originated in the Office of the Third Auditor of the Treasury Department.

Personnel Returns of the 6th Mass. Battalion, 1779-80, and Returns and Accounts of Military Stores for the 8th and 9th Mass. Regiments, 1779-82 (M913) reproduces a volume kept by Lieutenant Samuel Frost of the Sixth Massachusetts Battalion containing weekly and monthly returns, inspection returns, field returns, descriptive returns, and lists of officers and men of the battalion. The microfilm publication also reproduces a volume of returns maintained by the Ninth Massachusetts Regiment until January 1781 and thereafter by the Eighth Massachusetts Regiment, which concerns guns, muskets, bayonets, scabbards, swords, belts, slings, cartridges, cartridge boxes, drums, and fifes.

Documents Relating to the Military and Naval Service of Blacks Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor from the Civil War to the Spanish-American War (M929) reproduces documents from eight National Archives record groups, consisting mostly of letters sent, letters received, and reports, together with some issuances and a small number of court-martial case files and log entries.

Minutes of the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Maryland, 1790-1911 (M931) is the latest in a series of microfilm publications reproducing early federal court records. The minutes, which provide a chronological record of the activities of the court, should be valuable to both researchers interested in the general operations of the court and those interested in specific matters. John Saunders prepared the records for microfilming and wrote the introductory remarks.

Internal Assessment Lists for West Virginia, 1862-66 (M795) is now available on microfilm. The lists were compiled by district assessors who billed and collected periodic taxes on manufactures, income, and personal property. The assessment lists

should prove especially useful for biographers, local historians, and researchers interested in public finance, banking, or specific industries.

Records of the Central Superintendency of Indian Affairs, 1813-78 (M856) includes some records of its predecessor, the St. Louis Superintendency. The Central Superintendency originally was responsible for most of the Indians in what is now Kansas and Nebraska and in the upper regions of the Missouri, Platte, and Arkansas rivers in the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Colorado, but it gradually became responsible for agencies located in the Indian Territory. The records relate to almost all aspects of Indian administration within the jurisdiction of the superintendency, including the negotiation and enforcement of treaties; land surveys and allotments; Indian removal; annuity and other payments; Indian delegations; intrusions on Indian lands; traders and licenses; enforcement of federal laws. and regulations; hostilities and military operations; depredation claims; location of agencies; school attendance and curriculums; medical treatment; production at blacksmith, gunsmith, and wheelwright shops; construction and repair of buildings; and purchase and transportation of goods and supplies.

Historical Files of the American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia, 1918-20 (M917) is also available.

Descriptive pamphlets have been completed and introductory material added to Confidential and Unofficial Letters Sent by the Secretary of War, 1814-1847 (M7) and Letters Sent to the President by the Secretary of War, 1800-1863 (M127).

The National Archives recently began to microfilm the Numerical File of the Department of State for the years 1906 to 1910.

These records, the central foreign policy file of the department, include documentation relating to all aspects of American diplomacy and State Department business for that period. The microfilm publication will complement similar publications of pre-1906 State Department correspondence and major segments of the Decimal File, 1910-29, which already are available for purchase.

The Numerical File is a subject file, consisting of 25,982 separate case files bound in 1,172 volumes. Although it will take several years to complete the project, only those volumes being filmed at any one time will be unavailable for research at the National Archives. It will be possible to obtain positive microfilm copies of specific volumes at regular microfilm publication prices for one-tenth the cost of negative microfilm. Inquiries may be addressed to the Diplomatic Branch, National Archives and Records Service (GSA), Washington, DC 20408.

The Archives Branch, Kansas City Federal Archives and Records Center, has microfilmed federal nonpopulation census schedules for Iowa for the period 1850 to 1880. The agricultural, industrial, and social statistics schedules are in the custody of the State Historical Society of Iowa. The microfilm publication and previously filmed nonpopulation census schedules for Kansas and Nebraska are available through interlibrary loan from the Archives Branch, Federal Archives and Records Center (GSA), 2306 E. Bannister Rd., Kansas City, MO 64131.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library has microfilmed the comprehensive index to the press conferences of President Roosevelt. This publication supplements the 1971 microfilm edition of the Press Conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945. The index is on one roll and is available for $11.00 from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY 12538.

NEWS AND NOTICES

An archival symposium on business history will be held in Salem, Oregon, September 21, 1973. The symposium will be held in conjunction with the September 20 public meeting of the Region 10 Archives Advisory Council and the Northwest Archivists Group workshop on establishing the provenance of business records. Symposium sponsors are the Oregon State Library, Salem Public Library, Mission Mill Museum, Willamette University, Society of American Archivists, and the National Archives and Records Service. For further information contact the Federal Archives and Records Center (GSA), 6125 Sand Point Way, N.E., Seattle, WA 98115.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower Library will hold its third conference on the history of the American West, October 5-6, 1973. The conference, entitled "The Many Faces of the West," is also sponsored by the Kansas Corral of the Westerners and the Eisenhower Foundation. The conference will be combined with an exhibit of western art, including American Indian art from the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Alaska.

The Twenty-ninth Institute: Introduction to Modern Archives Administration will be held at the National Archives Building, October 15-26, 1973. The institute will be directed by Frank B. Evans, assistant to the archivist; Edward L. Weldon, a member of the Records Appraisal Division and

editor of the American Archivist, will serve as assistant director. While emphasizing public records and archives, the institute will feature a faculty experienced in all phases of work with public and private archives and manuscripts. The institute is accredited by the Department of History of the American University and is also sponsored by the Library of Congress and the Maryland Hall of Records. Inquiries should be addressed to the Twenty-ninth Archives Institute, Department of History, American University, Washington, DC 20016.

"Legal History: Sources for Research" will be the theme of an archival symposium to be held November 3, 1973, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Speakers will discuss sources for research in legal history found in the National Archives, regional archives, state archives, historical societies and libraries. For further information write Robert Svenningsen, Federal Archives and Records Center (GSA), Denver, CO 80225.

The new Federal Archives and Records Center at San Bruno, California, was the scene April 17 of the first mainland observance of the traditional Samoan celebration of Flag Day. The ceremony featured speeches and Samoan music, dances, and food. The center houses the records of the United States government relating to American Samoa.

The sixteenth annual meeting of the