LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES, Washington, D. C., November 15, 1948. To the Congress of the United States: In compliance with section 9 of the National Archives Act, approved June 19, 1934 (44 U. S. C. 300–300k), which requires the Archivist of the United States to make to Congress "at the beginning of each regular session, a report for the preceding fiscal year as to the National Archives, the said report including a detailed statement of all accessions and of all receipts and expenditures on account of the said establishment," I have the honor to submit herewith the fourteenth annual report of the Archivist of the United States, which covers the fiscal year ending June 30, 1948, and the four supplements to the report listing the accessions of the same period. It should be noted that for most of the year under review Dr. Solon J. Buck was Archivist of the United States. His many contributions as head of the agency are described in the body of the report. Respectfully, WAYNE C. GROVER, Archivist of the United States. V Fourteenth ANNUAL REPORT OF THE ARCHIVIST More reference services on records in the National Archives were rendered during the fiscal year 1948 than in any other year in the history of the agency. Each day the National Archives was open more than 1,000 services were performed by making records or copies of them available for use or by furnishing information from them. Altogether there were more than 346,000 of these services, about 60 percent of which were for Government agencies. Although this heavy demand was gratifying recognition of the useful role a central archival agency can play in private research, Federal administration, and public service, it necessitated the expenditure on this function alone of about 35 percent of the manpower available to the National Archives proper for the year. In view of the emphasis that had to be given to reference service, it was fortunate that the retirement of the records of the emergency war agencies moved along smoothly on the basis of previously made plans. By the end of the year few permanently valuable files of terminated war agencies remained outside the National Archives. Progress was made by a number of agencies in strengthening their records management programs, but it was not a year of unusual activity in this field. Efforts to facilitate the disposal of records of no continuing value and the transfer to the National Archives of valuable files were, of course, continued. One general schedule was issued and further attention was given to the development of appraisal standards, for the most significant contribution of the National Archives in records retirement is the application of broad professional knowledge of the values of Federal records for research and the weighing of such values against the cost of maintaining records after they have served their current administrative purposes. Sound and economical recommendations to Congress on what records should be retained must be based especially on these two factors. Accessioning of records settled down to the prewar level. The 58,500 cubic feet of records received in the fiscal year 1948 were only 4,500 cubic feet more than the amount received in the fiscal year 1940. Even so it was not possible to wipe out the large backlog of unpacked and unshelved records that piled up during the war period, when accessions were very heavy. This backlog was reduced somewhat, but nothing substantial could be done to reduce the more alarming backlog of records that need repair. The inability of the National Archives to prepare adequate finding aids for records in the custody of the Archivist, which has resulted primarily from the tremendous influx of records during the war and the great upsurge in reference work that followed it, is, however, the most serious problem faced by the agency. To provide a haven for valuable records, many of which might otherwise have been lost, the National Archives has in the past taken them in faster than it could assimilate them, and, even with the rate of accessioning reduced as it was in the year under review, it has been impossible to find time for the proper analysis and description of these records. At the same time, reference inquiries, particularly on records of the discontinued war agencies, have been numerous and to answer them on the basis of recourse to files that are often disarranged and largely undescribed has been so time-consuming that manpower that would have been used in describing them has had to be diverted to reference service. The necessity of abandoning the special program to prepare guides to the records of the Government's participation in World War II because of lack of funds and the severe reduction-in-force, which left only 341 on the pay roll at the end of the year as compared with 384 on June 30, 1947, and resulted in the loss of highly trained, experienced personnel, were further blows to the finding-aid program of the agency. Somehow a balance must be achieved between the amount of reference service, however useful to the Government and the public, and the amount of analysis and description work performed. To play its proper administrative, social, and cultural role, an archival establishment must not only preserve records but must make them available for This the National Archives, with limited resources, has been trying to do. It cannot, however, continue indefinitely to render reference service at the expense of other functions. Efficient, economical reference service is possible only after records have been properly arranged and basic finding aids have been prepared. If resources for such work cannot be obtained any other way, reference service will have to be curtailed even more than it has been and manpower now devoted to it diverted to the compilation of finding aids. The creation late in the year by Congress of a revolving fund for the National Archives into which fees for reproductions of material in the custody of the Archivist shall be paid will tend to make such reproduction work self-supporting. A grant of $20,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation for use in the agency's file-microcopy program and other reproduction work will also facilitate such services. In spite of the difficulties under which they have labored during the year, members of the staff of the National Archives have been hard-working and loyal. According to the many letters received from Federal administrators, scholars, and others, high standards of professional excellence and of service have been maintained. The administration of the National Archives is grateful for these efforts. For nearly all the year under review, Solon J. Buck was Archivist of the United States and administrative head of the National Archives Establishment, including the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, N. Y. He resigned effective May 31, 1948, to accept the position of Chief of the Division of Manuscripts and incumbent of the Chair of American History in the Library of Congress. Wayne C. Grover, Assistant Archivist of the United States, was named to succeed Dr. Buck, was confirmed by the Senate on June 2, and took the oath of office on June 4. Dr. Buck had already had a distinguished career as historian and administrator of historical societies when he came to the National Archives in 1935 to serve as Director of Publications. He later became Director of Research and Publications and on September 18, 1941, was confirmed as successor to R. D. W. Connor, the first Archivist of the United States. Taking office only a few months before Pearl Harbor, Dr. Buck assumed responsibility for an agency that was still in its infancy, still in an experimental stage in regard to organization and procedure. It was an agency that had to deal not only with the problems arising from nearly a century and a half of neglect of Federal records but also with the masses of records created by the emergency agencies of the depression period. Although the United States was not then involved in hostilities, the effects of World War II were already being felt by the agency. Only 7 years old, the National Archives was staffed to a large extent with young men and women just out of graduate school. So many of them were drawn into the war effort that during the first year of Dr. Buck's administration more than 200 of a staff of nearly 500 left the agency. The National Archives was proud that it had a larger percent of its staff in the armed services. than any other Government agency, but the loss of experienced employees made effective functioning difficult. Cuts in appropriations and the lengthening of the workweek soon forced a reduction of the staff to less than 350. At the same time that the staff was being cut about a third, records were flowing into the National Archives Building at such a rate that before armed conflict ended the holdings of the 812303-49- -2 |