FCCC 2014 Fall Conference TradeWinds Island Resorts, St. Pete Beach 10/30/2014 PRESERVATION AND DIGITIZATION OF HISTORICAL LAND RECORDS

Transcription

1 FCCC 2014 Fall Conference TradeWinds Island Resorts, St. Pete Beach 10/30/2014 PRESERVATION AND DIGITIZATION OF HISTORICAL LAND RECORDS

2 FACILITATORS Chuck Stiles, Alachua County Clerk of Courts Office Carol Foglesong, Orange County Comptroller s Office carol.foglesong@occompt.com

3 POLLING THE ROOM Do you have images beyond law requirement of 1990 to present on web? 1980? 1970? 1960? 1950? Do you have index data from before 1990? 1980? 1970? 1960? 1950? What is difference tween in your office and on web? Do you have an accurate inventory of your ORs and pre- ORs? Is everyone creating images/scans? Is anyone making book any more? Has anyone stopped making microfilm?

4 ALACHUA COUNTY YOU CAN T BEAT GOOD RECORDS J.K. Buddy Irby Clerk of Court

5 BEFORE: FROM THIS

6 TO THIS: MILLIONS OF IMAGES STORED AND AVAILABLE ON WEB

7 WHAT ALACHUA DID AND WHEN The Official Records Book in Alachua County started January 1, As of January 1, 1958, all recorded document types were placed in this one book The Official Records system was automated, and the online index started with OR Book number 732. A paper copy of the documents were maintained in the OR book.

8 ALACHUA COUNTY OVERVIEW 1981 Started an inhouse microfilm lab. Until 1995, each day eight rolls of microfilm were updated for the public to include the previous day s recording. Film was everywhere!

9 ALACHUA COUNTY OVERVIEW 1995 New recording system was installed with an imaging system. Images were scanned back to Images of the documents were available at the workstation.

10 ALACHUA COUNTY OVERVIEW 1999 Recording system was not Y2K compliant and had to be replaced. New recording system installed December 13, 1999, which also allowed web access the start of a new era. The World Wide Web -WWW

11 ALACHUA COUNTY OVERVIEW 2000 Ancient Records project starts and included all types of records received prior to Many of the documents have been transcribed by volunteers.

12 ALACHUA COUNTY OVERVIEW 2004 Started project to preserve the large index and deed books. This project covered 1928 to 1971, plus a number of selected older books. When the project was completed, over 300 books were digitized.

13 ALACHUA COUNTY OVERVIEW The books were scanned and a smaller and easier to handle compact book was created. With the images, film was created. The images were made available on the web.

14 ALACHUA COUNTY OVERVIEW

15 IMAGES ARE AVAILABLE ON THE WEB

16 YOU MUST VERIFY ALL WORK

17 ALACHUA COUNTY OVERVIEW 2005 Created a Citizens Guide To Official Records Documents 1928 To Present It is a summary of what records are available to public.

18 ALACHUA COUNTY OVERVIEW 2006 Redaction software is purchased and Official Records redaction project starts and continues to this day Closed in-house microfilm lab. Signed an agreement with Iron Mountain for film creation from scanned image and film storage. An electronic file is sent to Iron Mountain nightly and archival film is produced at book intervals.

19 ALACHUA COUNTY OVERVIEW 2013 Indexing project started to create an electronic index of the Official Records 1958 through

20 ALACHUA COUNTY OVERVIEW NEXT STEP FOR DIGITIZATION OF RECORDS 201(X) Create digitized images of the Official Records 1958 through 1971 documents and add them to the index. There are over 1,700 books with over 5 million images.

21 GETTING STARTED The preservation and digitization of all records is labor intensive, costly and takes time to complete. 1. Know what the retention requirements are for each record series. 2. Identify the Records Management Standards and Requirements. 3. Have a good inventory of the records you have. 4. Develop a clear plan, know where you want to go.

22 RETENTION REQUIREMENTS 1. Know what the retention requirements are for each record series.

23 RECORDS MANAGEMENT STANDARDS 2. Identify Records Management Standards and Requirements. Use both State of Florida and PRIA for information

24 GOOD INVENTORY OF ALL RECORDS 3. Update and verify inventory of all old records/books. Must have a good inventory of all records. Location: Condition: Formats:

25 HAVE A PLAN 4. Develop a clear plan and know where you want to go. You don t want to waste money, time, or staff resources.

26 FINAL THOUGHT Every enduring culture depends on records. Without good records, there would be no private property. Without good records, there would be no banks, no stock exchanges, no judicial system, no tax system, no workable government, and no history. In order to have accountability - legal, fiscal or governmental you have to have proper recordkeeping so that the decisions of people and public officials make can be verified. As basic as it sounds, records make all societies work. If those records are not accurate, society breaks down. The system only works if those responsible for recordkeeping embrace their obligations. From Preserving the Truth Michael Mink (2008)

27 ORANGE COUNTY Now to Orange County

28 ORANGE OVERVIEW Created our own go-forward images with scanners since 2001 Phase 1: Create microfilm from our scans Phase 2: Had index; added images Phase 3: Had index; added images Phase 4: Had index; added images Phase 5: Deed Books only; created index and images

29 ORANGE IMAGING ( ) Started creating our own scanned images in 1/2001; displayed images in office via index hook Ran 3 months with duplicating scanning and microfilming (yup, each doc twice!) To compare scans with film Processed our own film at that time Staff revolted; went to just scanning Once we had software that readily showed images in-house, added images to web searches also

30 ORANGE PHASE #1 Take images we are creating and turn them into 1 roll of silver archival film Issued RFP 2001; set up test ; evaluated results and responses Contracted for 3 years at price of $0.0275/image Have repeated RFP process 3 times $0.016/image $0.0225/image $0.0265/image

31 ORANGE PHASE #2 We had index data and wanted to add images Settled on creating images from microfilm for ; roughly 9 million images Surely everyone would be happy with 10 years of images! Issued RFP 9/1999; set up test ; evaluated test sample results and responses Cost = $0.045/image Went backwards from 2000 to 1990

32 ORANGE PHASE #3 We had index data and want to add more images None of our customers were satisfied with ! Realized microfilm from 1/1/ /31/1989 (20 years) had 1/2 number of images as , so cost would be about half; 2.9 million documents or 5.3 million images/pages Issued RFP 9/2000; set up test ; evaluated test sample results and responses Cost = $0.045/image Went backwards from 1990 to 1970

33 ORANGE PHASE #4 We have the index and want to add even more images Let s go back to the beginning of the ORs! Added images from 8/1955 to 12/31/1969 Create images from 1,904 rolls microfilm; roughly 1.5 million images Cost = $0.040/image non-photostat; $0.065/image photostat Went backwards from 1969 to 1955 Made new film from improved images; added browntoning

34 PHOTOSTAT UGLY

35 DEED BOOK STACKS

36 ORANGE PHASE #5 We had no computerized index but wanted to create one (using today s standards) and images for Deed Books Basically Some handwritten, some typed forms, some typed pages Decided against Mortgage, Satisfaction, etc. Books 640,000 images; 216 microfilm rolls Cost = $0.039/image; $0.70/doc for index; image from typed books $0.373/document; image from typed doc $0/268/document Test for both images and index data Made new film from improved images; new film $0.0275/imageadded browntoning

37 HANDWRITTEN DEED BOOK

38 DEED BOOK TYPED WITH WET SIGNATURE

39 THANKS! Chuck Stiles Assistant Clerk, Alachua County Clerk of Courts Office Carol Foglesong Assistant Comptroller, Records Administration Division, Orange County Comptroller s Office carol.foglesong@occompt.com