On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 10:02 AM, PeterK <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> As Mayor Bill de Blasio begins the new year with hopes of better managing
> the city's homeless population, keeping crime down and building more
> low-income apartments, he is embarking on another ambitious task, but one
> less likely to grab the public's attention: computerizing municipal records
> and creating a uniform policy for maintaining them.
>
> The administration is scanning millions of papers that are stashed in dusty
> boxes in private warehouses throughout the city and in New Jersey. Many
> paper records in the collection of 2.8 million boxes would then be thrown
> away.
>

Sounds like the estimate for the effort is WAY LOW....

"The administration is scanning millions of papers that are stashed in
dusty boxes in private warehouses throughout the city and in New Jersey.
Many paper records in the collection of 2.8 million boxes would then be
thrown away."

Hopefully, the specs and QC process will be designed to ensure before
anything is "thrown away" all images are legible and retrievable.

Haven't seen the specs or procedures written for the scanning process
(which is being vended after a bidding process) but the QC and indexing
aspects are going to be critical to ensure they achieve the goals set forth
in the Mayor's edict of "Improved record management practices will promote
accountability and improve operational efficiency."

The article also says:

"After they determine which documents will be kept as city records, agency
staffers will use high-speed scanners to download them into a
yet-to-be-determined database, Toole said. They will include all the
relevant data, including dates. All the while, DORIS will be coming up with
a simpler management system that will require uniformity among city
agencies."

It's true that agency staff will be best equipped to determine WHICH
RECORDS need to be retained and should be considered for scanning, but it's
highly doubtful that these same staffers are skilled to properly and
efficiently operate "high-speed scanners" and perform data entry to capture
metadata at cost rates that will make this successful.

Seems as though they are aware of large volumes of records that have met
retention and are able to be disposed of (and in some cases, should have
been decades ago), which will reduce the effort and also save money.
They've also clearly thought out what should/shouldn't be converted to
digital...

"At the start of the process, the city will simply get rid of boxes
containing papers whose required retention periods have passed. As of Dec.
31, Toole's spokeswoman said the agency identified 169,113 boxes eligible
for disposal that have been lying around without purpose.

Their contents do not need to be digitized: They are records the city was
required to keep temporarily. For example, personnel records must be
retained for 56 years — a time frame determined by taking into account life
expectancy, pension rules and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009,
Toole said. The boxes also contain agency contracts and budget reports
whose required shelf lives vary."
But the devil is in the details here:

"She is issuing a request for bidders, along with the city's information
technology department, who can come up with systems for the city to use,
similar to those employed by large law firms."

If they are planning to find a system, THEN begin the efforts to
convert/scan content and index it, they may lose some valuable time.  While
there is sense in doing this *IF* you're going to lock yourself into a
proprietary system that dictates field types and sizes for metadata and
controls content structure... but if you're going to scan and convert to
standard, accepted formats and use normally accepted metadata taxonomy and
fields, they can get part of the way down the road, without waiting.   And
depending on the role IT has in the decision making process, it may be less
'user friendly' than needed to "improve operational efficiency", from an
end user standpoint.



-- 
Larry
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*----Lawrence J. MedinaDanville, CARIM Professional since 1972*

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