By Conrad Dudderar
Staff Writer
To improve the quality of scanned images on file, the Canadian County Clerk’s Office has launched an effort to benefit citizens seeking public documents.
Two companies have submitted proposals for County Clerk Sherry Murray’s image scanning and enhancement project.
“My goal is to enhance all the images – your mortgage deeds, oil deeds, anything like that,” Murray said. “A lot of what we have on-line is hard to read; that was done many years ago. I’m having them all re-scanned and enhanced.
“About 600 books are what are called ‘photostat’ books, with the black background and white print. We’ll be able to reverse that, and it will make them clearer.”
The Canadian County Clerk’s Office has an account that may only be used for records preservation.
Midwest Printing’s price is $1,798,500 to scan the record books on-site at the Canadian County Administration Building, 201 N Choctaw in El Reno.
Kofile Technology’s price is $3,679,572 to take the documents and scan them at their plant in Texas.
It would take Midwest Printing one year and Kofile Technology six months to complete the work, according to the vendors’ submitted bid documents.
Canadian County Commissioners opened bids at their July 31st meeting but tabled action indefinitely. They will consider awarding the contract at a future meeting.
“My goal is that somebody who doesn’t want to come in here (to the office) – or is doing research – has access online to the best quality documents available,” Murray said.
PRESERVATION IMPORTANT
The Canadian County clerk’s other goal is to scan in copies of the books, which will be kept at her office.
Originals will be sent to an underground vault in Hutchison, Kan. to help preserve them.
“Whenever they’re being used every day and handled, they deteriorate,” Murray noted.
The public can access online records by calling the Canadian County Clerk’s Office to obtain a password.
Each book holds about 750 pages.
“What we have here on-site is up to book 2,215,” Murray said. “We only kept books up to the 3,300s; those are already at the underground vault. After that, they’re solely online.”
With plans to construct a new Canadian County Courthouse complex, the county clerk is trying to conserve space in her office.
“Eventually, I would store all the books off-site and get them online,” Murray said. “It’s trying to plan for the future, so we won’t have to have as much room as we need now.”
