AUGUSTA — A town clerk brought a 1-inch sheaf of documents — their paper brown with age — to the state archives, hoping the records of local births, deaths and town meetings could be restored.

But state Archivist James S. Henderson said the papers dating back to the 1840s had deteriorated so badly — he likened their condition to that of cobwebs — that they could not be copied or microfilmed.

That is just one example of how recorded pieces of Maine’s history, stashed on decaying paper in musty town-office basements and confined to obsolete, crumbling computer tapes, are being lost forever, Henderson said.

Maine’s archivist is also chairman of an advisory board that has spent a year assessing the condition of historical records in most of the state’s libraries, town halls and other repositories. The panel, which also found many state documents to be endangered, presented its report to Gov. John R. McKernan on Monday.

“It’s not just the old musty dusties” that are of concern, Henderson said.

A wealth of state agencies’ records are stored on various kinds of computerized systems, some of which are so old the information is irretrievable.

“You have reel-to-reel discs that can no longer be read,” Henderson said.

Besides being of interest to historical researchers, the endangered records of births, deaths, personal and family papers, town-meeting minutes and the like may hold important clues to Maine’s past, the board says in its report to McKernan.

Some of the endangered records scattered throughout state government agencies are of practical use to state planners and policy-makers. A photo showing a general store equipped with an old-fashioned gas pump could be a clue to the location of a leaking underground fuel tank, the report says.

The advisory panel visited and reviewed surveys from 250 records repositories, which account for most of those in the state. While conditions are good in official state archives, they are running out of space.

Less than half of the historical records stored in other locations throughout the state are kept in fireproof vaults, and most are in wooden buildings where there are no fireproof vaults. Many records still in good condition are kept in places where they could deteriorate under surrounding conditions.

Few towns officials have the time or knowledge to properly care for the records, which in many cases are not completely indexed, the report found.

By completing its report, the advisory panel became eligible for federal historical-preservation grants, which it could distribute to municipal and state agencies, Henderson said.

The report suggests workshops to teach local officials how to properly store their old documents, and encourages towns to take advantage of state services to help them keep aging papers and photos in good shape.

It also suggests that towns establish cooperative efforts to preserve their records.

The state archives should also give special attention to finding a way to preserve computerized records in a unified system that will be accessible to future researchers, the report says.