I have to agree with some of what's already been said. Tom's process seems 
pretty sound and it should ensure the quality of the capture, and likely the 
images as well. I would have assumed (depending on the retention period for 
the originals in question) that after two callbacks, if they were satisfied 
that the content was accurate and complete, it would have been possible to 
push for destruction of the originals.
 Again, I must qualify this based on WHAT the originals are, and what the 
retention period for them is. No matter if the capture was 100% complete and 
accurate, if the records have a 50 year or longer retention and there is no 
backup beyond another copy of the electronic images, the cost of storing the 
paper is minimal compared to losing the records. This isn't to say that in 
ALL cases where paper records are scanned and imaged they will degrade or be 
lost over time, but there is an increased risk that they won't be properly 
handled to ensure they remain available throughout their required retention. 

 And, there are costs that need to be budgeted for to accommodate this... 
storage of a secondary set of records in a proper environment, periodic 
migration to newer ("fresher") media, conversion as necessary to accommodate 
any changes in format (or operating platform), and potential hardware 
obsolescence, and all of this for the entire required retention period, 
utilizing similar audit measures to ensure nothing is lost during the 
conversions and migrations throughout the lifecycle.
 As to Bill's point of "double the stuff", well... I noticed your e-mail 
address and that would indicate you're likely with a city or county 
government. I'd think in that scenario, you might rather deal with double 
the stuff than the potential of being "stuffless". =) If the records you're 
dealing with are those that serve the public interest (including possibly 
land, birth, death or other vital records) then even more stringent measures 
should be taken to audit the accuracy of the capture and strong 
consideration should be given to either generating a set of microfilm DURING 
the capture process, which is much less expensive then doing it later, or 
retaining the paper to produce replacement images in the event the 
electronic records are compromised over time. It's difficult to ensure 
funding will be continually available to convert and migrate images and/or 
keep technology current in a taxpayer funded environment. 

 I know without a procedure for double checking the accuracy we will never
> be authorized to destroy the paper document. The scanner checks as she
> is scanning, but we aren't comfortable destroying the paper original
> without double checking, however, we are a small department - and we are
> hoping that someone has a better system in place than clicking through
> page after page of scanned documents for accuracy.

 As you said, it's a small department... and while it might seem inefficient 
to check every image, think of it this way... what if the images that are 
unreadable are ones that YOU MIGHT NEED in 5, 10 or 15 years?? If these are 
images of records that are less likely to be retained for more than 6 years 
and their loss would constitute nothing more than a minor inconvenience, 
well, my opinion might be different.
 Larry

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance