As a result of legislation and their own initiatives, counties across the US continue to move their records away from paper and into digital formats. Aside from the obvious benefits of having a file that doesn’t degrade in quality over time, counties are also able to provide increased access for constituents while freeing up county staff.
Over the last month or so, two new counties have embarked on a digitization journey: Warren County, Mississippi and Ector County, Texas. In Ector County, commissioners needed to act as the physical records were falling apart, leaving only a matter of time before these birth, marriage, land, criminal, and other records would be lost for good.
Given that the records go back to the early 1900s and are in bad shape, it’s not a small project. The county budgeted almost $11 million and three years to accomplish the task, but they’ll be able to use $9 million of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to significantly defray the cost. Many counties have been able to tap into government programs to support digitization efforts whether it be through this latest bill or other one-off sources of funds like the CARES Act during the pandemic, when in-person traffic needed to be minimized.
The Warren County files go back even further, with earliest records dating back to 1807. The officials there partnered with document digitization company US Imaging to get through records as quickly as possible. They ran a 24x7 scanning operation so the public could have access to the images faster and then will be going through a cleanup process over the next year or so. At a cost of a half million dollars, the Warren project is smaller than Ector’s, but it similarly would have been out of reach were it not for ARPA funds the county received.
Meanwhile, as some counties are just beginning their digitization work, others are reflecting on what the change has done for their counties. A group of north central West Virginia counties got on board with digitization in the early 2000s. Even counties like these, who have been working with digital records for some time acknowledged how grants play a pivotal role. Despite the fact that they’ve gotten on this early, Harrison County, WV is still in the process of getting the oldest (100+ years) records online. Despite challenges and expenses, though, Marion County Clerk Julie Kincaid summed up the value of digital records succinctly: “Heaven forbid, but if something like a flood or fire were to damage our records, we would still have them. Another benefit is that people from out of state are able to access the records, so it saves them a trip to Marion County. Our archives are at our fingertips.”
About the Author: Chris Mack
Chris is a Marketing Manager at Extract with experience in product development, data analysis, and both traditional and digital marketing. Chris received his bachelor’s degree in English from Bucknell University and has an MBA from the University of Notre Dame. A passionate marketer, Chris strives to make complex ideas more accessible to those around him in a compelling way.