David - In 1999 the DA's office in McLennan County began maintaining
Disposition Letters (a permanent record) in electronic format only.  Each
year they forwarded a CD to the Records Center for permanent storage.  When
people needed the information, we would access the CD's and fax the info to
them.  This worked fine for the 1999 CD, but we were unable to access the
info on the later CD's.  Turned out they had used an old version of
WordPerfect which was no longer on any of the computers.  We had to find a
copy of the software, load it on one of the Records Center computers and
spend a year printing out the disposition letters.  We now plan to film/scan
the documents and save the file as a pdf file which we hope will remain
accessible for many years.  If not, there will be microfilm.  This is a long
way of saying that the electronic format is wonderful, but when dealing with
permanent/long term records be sure they remain accessible which will
require a good working relation with your IT department.

-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of David Singley
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 3:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Destruction of paper once scanned


List Members -

I am in a predicament here in Georgia.  A number of departments within my
county are scanning documents AND maintaining the hardcopy - unfortunately
my record center is the recipient of those hardcopy files.  I have some
support for a policy that will designate the electronic version as the
official record and mandate destruction of the hardcopy (or at least not
allow it into the county record center).  Does anyone have any experience
with something like this, particularly in a government environment?

David Singley
Records Management Officer
Gwinnett County Government, GA
[log in to unmask]
770-822-7060


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