<The back copy was used for our legal description indexers and discarded
after use; the front card was kept as a permanent record to show when
and where the original document was mailed back. >
You say the purpose of the front card was to show when and where the
original document was "mailed back." Is there any other purpose? IF
the legal descriptions have been entered in the index (see back copy),
what other information do folks need from these cards? Knowing when a
document was "mailed back" to the filer serves no legal or real property
purpose I can think of (after a brief period of time - maybe one year),
but I may be uninformed.
Ginny Jones
(Virginia A. Jones, CRM, FAI)
Records Manager
Information Technology Division
Newport News Dept. of Public Utilities
Newport News, VA
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-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Tim Barnard
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 5:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] Storage of little-used 5x8 cards
Pondering this problem I have come up with several solutions, but none I
like. Maybe the great minds of the Listserv could offer some advice on
a slow holiday season.
This problem is for my "other hat" as supervisor of the county's land
records office where deed and mortgage records are filed. From 1970 to
1986 a two-part 5x8" index card was made for every document filed. The
back copy was used for our legal description indexers and discarded
after use; the front card was kept as a permanent record to show when
and where the original document was mailed back. Averaging 20,000
filings a year, we now have 10 cabinets, 56 drawers total, of probably
300,000 or more cards. (Newer records are in our AS/400 computer
system.) The cabinets are in the way and we are trying to figure out
what to do with their contents.
Twenty or more years later these cards are rarely accessed, but needed
quickly when required. The title research business has an "I need it
now" mentality, because waiting for information can keep the researcher
from doing other work. We also periodically get walk-in customers who
want this information. Having them wait for an hour or so is poor
policy, too. Here are the solutions I've come up with so far:
a.. Box them all up and send them to our offsite storage contractor.
This is the simplest and probably cheapest method. But my concern is
retrieval time. If we needed the info off a single card, just having
the storage vendor find it and call us back could take a while, even in
ideal conditions. Will our customers be willing to wait?
b.. Photocopy them, 3 to a page, double sided, dispose of the
originals and store the paper copies onsite. This would take up much
less space than the cabinets, we could use our standard storage boxes
and they would be readily available, but the job would be very
labor-intensive.
c.. Microfilm them. This would take up less space than paper copies
and last much longer. But we don't have a microfilm reader, so it would
be hard to justify the cost of one for just these records. (I have
tried for 3 years to no avail to get my boss to get microfilm backups of
our image-only deed records, but that's another story.)
d.. Scan them onto CD's or DVD's. This would take up even less space
and provide faster access if they are indexed properly, but then you
have to worry about cost and migration issues for little-used records.
One other problem with any method of copying these is the color of the
cards. The deed cards are white, but the mortgage cards are several
shades of green. I don't know how well they would copy.
Anybody have any ideas? A better solution I haven't thought of yet?
Thanks!
Tim Barnard, Records Management Clerk
Harrison County, Mississippi
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Phone (228) 865-4121 Fax (228) 865-4140
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