Simplifying Document Imaging For County Archives

A new scanning solution at Chester County Archives cut the time it takes to convert a box of documents from a day to 90 minutes.

Managing and retaining public records may sound like a relatively simple process, but for government archiving agencies it can be quite a daunting task. Local and state government regulations vary but non-permanent public records typically must be kept available for anywhere from three to 50 years. In the past, Chester County Archives and Records Services (CCARS) of Pennsylvania would store many of these records on microfilm for both retention and employee access purposes. Although microfilm was the best option CCARS had available at the time, it also proved to be arduous and expensive to produce.

Recently, CCARS instituted a system designed to manage these records electronically using document scanning technology. Unfortunately, the initial scanning system that was used proved to be very labor-intensive and inefficient. On average, the department was effectively scanning a year’s worth of court records each year. Faced with this and a variety of other challenges, CCARS began a search for a better way to address their document retention needs.

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