Session 7 - Collaboration, Consolidation, and Discovering a Better Way: A Case Study on Developing a Records Repository on a Dime
Accessibility to public records is one of the foundations of a local government. Lacking the financial infrastructure to pay for a large-scale inventory system, Director Jen Haney Conover and Deputy Archivist Jenifer Baker of the Warren County Records Center and Archives joined forces with the county’s Information Technology Department in late 2019, to create a robust in-house inventory. This new system offers accessibility to all county staff, which saves time and money, and most importantly provides them with more efficient public records request fulfillment. Prior to 2022, Archives staff utilized over 25 different Access and Excel databases to find records in all formats within their repository. These databases were cumbersome, not connected to the records delivery system, and time consuming. Various inventory systems had been created and were put on hold while other projects took priority over the years. Jenifer Baker and Jen Haney Conover will walk through the progress of their three-year project so you can learn from their mistakes, take advantage of their successes, and discuss where the agency hopes to go in the future to connect their inventory of physical records with electronic document management repositories.
Seventy-Five percent of NAGARA’s membership work in local and state governments, which is historically understaffed and underfunded. This presentation targets this large demographic, in hopes of giving members the tools needed for collaboration with other departments, discussing alternative options on how to manage your records repository on a minimal budget or starting from scratch, and sharing lessons learned.
Target Audiences: State/Tribal, Local, Public Institutions of Higher Learning
Focus Areas: Archives, Records Management, Technology/Tools
Presenters: Jen Haney Conover, Director, Records And Archives, Warren County Records Center, and Jenifer Baker, Deputy Archivist, Warren County Records Center