The purpose was to compress non-permanent records to alleviate a storage crisis in the near future. A consulting grant from the previous year, as well as the written comments from the grant panel, made it clear that it was advisable in install a server, rather than to depend totally on CD ROM production. The purpose of the substitution was to increase the versatility of the system. The Docucentre with associated Docucentre and Docushare software permits seemless scanning, uploading, printing and faxing. The versatility of the system has been increased significantly by permitting potentially 25 departments to upload and share their documents, while at the same time permitting various access settings.
Docushare software can automatically convert documents to HTML for web-like applications.
It also produces an automatic text index permitting every conceivable Boolean search. Although Docushare on the server can be accessed by anyone in the County, the RMO as system administrator, has up to now restricted access to read only. For this year, at least, the primary thrust has to be the compression of records to avoid filling the Records and Archives Center. Only the most frequently accessed records are actually kept on the server. Should more immediate access become necessary again, the information on CD-ROM can be uploaded to the server.