On the day the Church was organized the Prophet Joseph received this revelation:
“BEHOLD, there shall be a record kept among you . . . .”
I have always felt this was such a significant principle to be taught the prophet so early. In fact, every time I set apart any one to be a clerk or a secretary, I quoted these words.
How was Joseph to know the importance of keeping records? Of course, he had the examples of the writers of the Book of Mormon who had been so meticulous in writing things down. Nevertheless this was a whole new experience to him, to organize a church, and the early instruction given (beyond Section 20) was to keep a record.
The prophet kept this commandment seriously. He was careful to see that all the revelations were kept track of and published, and he constantly kept scribes to write down historic events. Local Church newspapers were constantly publishing records and revelations.
As proof of his diligence in this regard, a project underway today (Joseph Smith Papers. See http://josephsmithpapers.org/Default.htm ) will eventually result in over 30 volumes of revelations, translations, correspondence, declarations, discourses, journals and histories.
To keep track of all the records the Church has, a new Church History Library has been built at 15 East North Temple Street in Salt Lake City.
The Salt Lake Tribune said of the building, “The library houses the extensive collection of manuscripts, photographs, journals and other historical records for the 179-year-old church. Among the collection’s more valuable items are the personal journals and writings of Joseph Smith Jr., who founded the church in 1830. It’s also the home of the church history department.” It added, “Sophisticated temperature controls will allow the collection to be stored and precisely preserved — most storage facilities are kept at 55 degrees Fahrenheit and 35 percent relative humidity.” (June 22, 2009.)
Much can be said about the records in this library, those (genealogy) records in the nearby Family History Library (and its branches), those in the granite vaults in Little Cottonwood Canyon (see below*) and the countless journals kept by our ancestors and ourselves.
All this from a revelation in April 1830!
*The vaults at Little Cottonwood Canyon: “Master microfilms of genealogical records are stored in this climate-controlled vault carved out of the mountain. The vault preserves almost 2.4 million microfilms and nearly 1 million microfiche acquired over the decades. That represents more than 3 billion pages of family history records, the largest collection of its kind in the world.” (http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=11011)
I am happy to say that I am among those indexing the records in the vault. In coming years the digitized records of the microfilms, etc, will be available on-line to anyone wanting to see them.
(The key life events of billions of people are being preserved and shared through the efforts of people like you. Using our online indexing system, volunteers from around the world are able to quickly and easily transcribe the records—all from the convenience of their homes. The indexes are then posted for FREE at familysearch.org.
(Millions of rolls of microfilm provide census, vital, probate, and church records from over 100 countries are involved. Governments, churches, societies, and commercial companies are also working to make more records available.) (See familysearch.org)
Behold, a record is being kept!
Wally Gray's Blog 
