Report of the Forty-eighth Annual
Meeting 301
JOINT COMMITTEE PLANS FOR ARCHIVAL
SURVEYS
By T. R. SCHELLENBERG
It is quite obvious to research students
that in the past thirty
years the amount of printed matter has
increased in geometric
ratio. Today students are literally
engulfed with a mass of ma-
terials, many of which are printed on a
cheap wood-pulp paper
which crumbles to dust after a few
decades, but which reflect
quite accurately the passing moods of
our day. As this printed
matter has increased, a constantly
increasing expenditure for the
collection and preservation of research
materials has become neces-
sary. In fact, libraries must count on
doubling their capacity every
twenty years. And despite the best
efforts of libraries, historical
societies, and other repositories, much
material which would be of
inestimable value to future students of
our period is constantly
being destroyed. In the presence of this
situation, the Social
Science Research Council and the
American Council of Learned
Societies set up a joint committee on
research materials, which
has its headquarters at Cleveland, and
which should study what
is being done to collect and preserve
the evidences of our civili-
zation, as well as what ought to be done
to improve their collection
and preservation.
One phase of Joint Committee activities,
which fortunately
brought the committee in touch with most
historical societies of
the country, including the Ohio State
Archaeological and His-
torical Society, was the attempt to lay
out a plan for a nation-
wide survey of local archival material.
Local archives have been
defined as written or printed books,
papers, or maps, made and
received in pursuance of law by
counties, cities, towns, and villages
in the transaction of public business.
They consist of all the
papers and documents, whether manuscript
or printed, which have
accumulated during the operation of
local governmental units.
Local archives are of great importance
in studying the gov-
ernmental, economic, military, legal,
and social history of any
particular community, which may be taken
as representative of
many other similar communities. In fact,
they contain the largest
available amount of information on local
history, revealing the