Having records available and accessible is important to Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder Ginger Kunz and District Court Clerk Dori Woods. The county is seeking bids to ensure the records are secure and easy for the public to attain. The bid consists of two separate proposals to digitize the respective offices.
This Request for Proposal is a long time coming, as it started with previous clerk and recorder Bonnie Ramey, who retired in May of 2021.
“She started it two to three years before she left,” Kunz said. “She knew this was important and wanted to be proactive. It’s a big process, but one that’s important. The books and the microfilm are fragile.”
The project will encompass the digital capture of a collection of historical materials in bound and pinned books as well as aperture card and 16 mm formats.
The idea behind the project is preservation, Kunz said, and the bonus of digital is accessibility. Kunz said she and others in the clerk and recorder’s office have especially come to appreciate the importance of making records easily accessible following the coronavirus pandemic, when much of the public didn’t feel comfortable coming into the office to get records.
Commissioners have also expressed support for moving forward with digitization. Kunz said she appreciates how agreeable and how understanding they have been, especially when it comes to financing the project.
Kunz said digitizing these records is something that should be done as soon as possible, largely to protect the material against natural disaster, water, fire and general deterioration.
Woods agrees, adding that there was a water leak in the roof just last year that could have potentially damaged some of the old records. “We’ve got to get it done,” she said. “This is our heritage, and if it’s destroyed we won’t have any of it.”
There are a number of vendors out there who specialize in digitizing records, which consist largely of deeds, county commission meeting minutes, commissioner records and journals, patent record index and records, and many other historic materials. The District Court office consists of easements, criminal records, old divorce records and genealogical records. It’s critical for the public to have access, and with a new system, Woods said it will also be easier to search for the files.
“It can take hours to search for stuff sometimes,” Woods said, “and – if it’s digitized – all you need is a name or a keyword, like ‘cattle guard.’”
Unfortunately, such a project is not cheap. Woods received a bid for more than $200,000 just to digitize the district court’s microfilm library alone. Kunz said that estimate is high and she believes one will come through that might be more reasonable. Regardless, she said, it’s worth it.
There is a lot that goes into this digital preservation, Kunz said, and it’s all convenient, as this upgrade will improve office efficiency in accessing records via a web-based digital archive with customer-friendly digital search features and future ability to enable remote e-commerce customer access. Kunz said these updates will also enhance image quality.
One of the things Kunz said she’s most excited about with this project is having a high-functioning Optical Character Recognition system (text recognition on images) that can service the entirety of each defined records category. In addition the finished product will provide direct-document access between indexes and records in categories of commissioner, patent and land record documents.
With LaserFiche software – which the county currently uses – some of these items are already searchable, but the digital preservation project will cover a much higher volume of materials, which will be a win-win for staff and the public alike, and the sooner the better.
“The longer we wait, the more chances there are for a natural disaster or even another pandemic,” she said. “We don’t want to be on the other side saying ‘it’d be really nice to be able to access these records without having to physically be in the office.’”
Kunz and Woods said they hope to have a bid accepted by June 30 (the end of the fiscal year) and hope to have the project completed by the end of the calendar year.
“I’m anxious to get this started and get it done this year,” Kunz said. “A lot of other counties have already done it and I think it will be a really big accomplishment for us to get this done.”
Kunz and Woods also want people to know the old records will remain in the office. They will not be replaced – just backed up. Records will not be lost.
