After reading the initial complaints about access to Delaware County records, I went looking for information on Pennsylvania's laws regarding access to public records (a remark about a reporter who didn't see a problem caught my attention since I'm in the newspaper business -- that reporter needs to learn some things about open government). I discovered the problem is more than a hard-headed functionaries who don't have any notion of what it means to be PUBLIC servants. Pennsylvania's law regarding access to public records (the Right to Know Law mentioned in somebody else's message) is extremely weak compared to such laws in most states. For example, it places the burden for proving a record should be open to members of the public on the person who requests access. A good open records law assumes all government records are open unless the custodian can point to a specific law that says that particular type of record is closed. Furthermore there is no enforcement mechanism other than filing a lawsuit, and if a citizen goes to court and wins, he or she cannot force the state to reimburse legal costs. Incidently nonresidents have been excluded from even using the law by a court decision; denying those of us who live in other states access does not violate the law according to that decision. By all means, go ahead with protests, letter-writing campaigns etc. It might convince some elected official in Delaware County to change things there. But also consider getting involved with some broader efforts to change the state law. It's not just genealogical research that is affected by public employees who think their offices and files are private reserves from which the public can be excluded. The Pennsylvania Newspaper Association is involved in just such an effort. Check out its arguments for a replacement law at http://www.pnpa.com/legislative/r2kcrisis.htm or the current law at http://www.pnpa.com/legal/open.htm There is also a series of articles that were apparently published in April 1999 about how even reporters were denied access to a good number of records that should be open by even a narrow interpretation of the current law. The series is not the easiest thing to access (I've only looked at a couple of the text files), but you can start at http://www.pnpa.com/projectopen/ -- Karl Seitz