One of my early goals was to bring more transparency to government records. As a former freelance writer, I have relied upon government records and understand the importance of access by the public. In a 2016 editorial, the Las Vegas Review Journal agreed.
Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 29, 2016 – 8:00 pmPublic access to government documents is vital to the health of any free society. Barring some extraordinary circumstances — national security, for instance — accountability demands that such records be open and available to those who seek to review them.
Unfortunately, too many government agencies and bureaucrats reflexively take the opposite approach, withholding information until specifically ordered to provide it. That’s why Clark County Clerk Lynn Goya deserves a ton of credit for seeking to digitalize all of her office’s records to make it easier for members of the public to find them online.” Read here.
Easier Said than Done
Well, that was a lot harder than it first appeared! First, we had to digitize millions of paper documents in a floor full of historical file cabinets. Once we digitized our paper files, we were surprised to find that the that archive actually only went back to the year 2000. Nearly a century of previous records had been destroyed after being copied to microfiche, microfilm and digital reel. These records are not only rapidly degrading, sometimes the process had been sloppy and some records were either faded or unreadable. We purchased sophisticated equipment to go through those records, one by one, to enhance the image to the point where it could be digitized and included in the master archive. (We are well on our way to completing this effort but not yet done.)
Search for “Google-like” search engine
After much searching and testing of highly touted software systems that said they could provide the online digital search engine we need to provide the online search capability, we just signed a contract with one.
After a decade of work and countless hours, by the end of the year we hope to launch the coveted “google-like” search engine of our county commission records back to 2000. At the same time, we are in the process of final cleanup of the archive we have digitized and indexed, so that it should be easy to find information for which you are looking. As we continue to incrementally add to the archive stretching back to the county’s founding in 1909, we hope you will take the time to see what your county has done over the decades. Who knows what you will find?