Syscon Preservation Services provides digital records and backups of your current and archived records and documents, whether on paper, microfilm, or microfiche.  These digitized records become an essential part of your disaster recovery plan and enable you to control and/or eliminate ongoing storage costs through more efficient space utilization in your office.

Digital Record Preservation and Backup

A major problem with paper and film documents is the rapid deterioration that can occur over time.  Many state, county, and municipal agencies have documents that are decades, and oftentimes centuries, old.  Deeds, mortgages, civil docket books, photostat records, plat maps, probate files, etc. are all irreplaceable and hold the story of a county’s past.  Similarly, most businesses have volumes of documents that have accumulated over the years, which are considered permanent records.

Paper, microfilm and microfiche mediums face a tough world.  Unfortunately, these archival workhorses are vulnerable to many physical and environmental dangers within a typical office setting.  The life of paper documents is influenced by handling methods, heat, light, high or fluctuating humidity, fire, water damage, insects, rodents and oxidation.  Microfilm and microfiche share some of the same problems including vulnerability to light, heat, high humidity, oxidation, chemical residue, and mismanaged product handling.  Using state of the art equipment and conversion techniques from Syscon Preservation Services, all of your documents including those that are fragile, faded and worn, can be easily converted to high quality digital images.

With onsite service provided by Syscon, there is no need to purchase expensive equipment and hire personnel for a one-time preservation project.  Onsite service means that your valuable, rare, fragile and irreplaceable original documents are scanned in your office without the worry of documents being lost or damaged while in transit to an off-site location.  Our team of highly skilled and dedicated preservationists will handle your documents with great care, striving to complete your project in a timely and professional manner while still producing the best quality images possible.  All sizes of paper can be converted with the most typical being: A4 - 8.5 x 11, A3 - 11 x 17, A2 -17 x 22, A1 - 22 x 34, A0 – 34 x 44. In addition, Syscon Preservation Services provides conversion of microfilm - both 16mm and 35mm, microfiche and aperture cards, bound & sewn books up to 22 x 34, and plat and schematic drawings/blueprints up to 36” x 40’ to high resolution TIFF or JPEG image formats unless otherwise requested.

Once your documents are converted, they will be accessible from your computer system.  You will also receive backup CDs or DVDs of the converted images for storage in an off-site temperature and humidity controlled facility.  In addition, Syscon retains a set of your images, which we store in a secure facility.  Syscon never sells copies of your images to other entities.  However, if you decide to allow someone else to have copies of your images, Syscon will provide them at your request.

Disaster Recovery

Natural disasters and accidents can take the biggest toll on paper and film records.  Unless you have originals stored in a climate controlled and storm proof facility, recovery may be difficult and expensive at best and is often impossible.  Consider the following:

“PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. — As Hurricane Katrina approached, local historians were confident a vault filled with precious pre-Civil War pictures, maps and documents cataloging the history of this Gulf Coast community would be safe.  Hopes were high after the storm passed. The former bank building that served as the Pass Christian Historical Society headquarters washed away, but its vault still stood. Workers opened it to find wet, sopping papers — the ruined history of a seaside town. Most of the collection including town ledgers and old newspapers is lost.  

- Caryn Rousseau, Associated Press (Article from the L. A. Times)

Preserving your records as digital images allows for the recovery of irreplaceable records in the aftermath of a fire, flood, tornado or other natural disasters or accidents.  Information can be quickly restored to file retrieval servers, and historical documents and books can be reprinted if needed.  Digital preservation allows for quick recovery and start up of your governmental office or business after such an event and should constitute a major component of your disaster recovery plan.

Cost Control

Conversion of paper, microfilm and microfiche records to digital images also helps your office better control costs.  For paper records, there are costs for file folders and/or record books.  Also the expense for additional file space and/or cabinets for record books can be significant.

For microfilm and microfiche, equipment and supplies to view and print images are expensive to maintain, repair, and replace, and they take up valuable space.  Also, film and fiche deteriorate from handling, environmental conditions and other factors and need to be replaced periodically.

Lost records are also a problem.  Misfiled paper, film and fiche records are, for all practical purposes, lost until someone happens to locate them.  Paper records that are removed from the record books and never returned are lost forever if there are no backup records.  Film and fiche may be inadvertently destroyed in the reader/printer or may be removed from the office either accidentally or intentionally.

Once your records are preserved digitally, the images are available to anyone who has access to the system.  Since you are only viewing and printing the records, multiple stations can access the same record simultaneously.  Overall, digital images help you minimize capital expenditures and ongoing maintenance costs while gaining the ability for many users to easily access the same information at the same time.

Efficient Space Utilization

In most offices, space to store new paper records is at a premium or oftentimes unavailable.  Off-site storage is not really an option for records that are frequently accessed.  Costs for adding physical storage space are prohibitive.  Even rearranging the office to add storage space and cabinets is cumbersome, inconvenient, and expensive.

Preserving and converting records to digital images means the originals may be safely stored off-site in an environmentally controlled facility.  Original paper records will no longer suffer the wear and tear of constant handling.  Microfilm or microfiche records can then be stored off-site as an additional back up.

Computer programs can be used to search the digital records for desired information.  An immediate advantage is that the access speed is greatly improved since the need to manually search the physical records is eliminated.  Twenty-six counties in Alabama currently store all their current land records, marriage records, will records and other official documents as digital images on systems designed and installed by Syscon.  Most of these counties have prior or current contracts with Syscon to convert their older records to digital images.  A typical example of official documents that have been converted into digital images for one Alabama County includes:

- 347 Deed Record books dating back to the 1900’s (over 347,000 8.5 x 14 double sided physical pages.)

- 26 Will Record books dating back to the 1900’s (30,000 8.5 x 14 double sided physical pages.)\

- 400 Mortgage Record books dating back to the 1900’s (over 390,000 8.5 x 14 double sided physical pages.)

Also preserved were judgments, marriages, corporations, mechanic’s liens, hospital liens, adoptions, and other miscellaneous records that added another 200,000 physical images of various sizes to the project.  The original manual index books that reference the recorded instruments where also converted. The index books were the only information source for the documents that existed at that time.  The benefits this county received from converting their documents to digital images are:

• An alternative to bulky storage was provided thereby saving physical storage space.
• Customer service operation improvements.  The need to manually pull the physical books for customers and also copy the physical pages on a copier was eliminated.  This eliminated wear on the original documents and increased the efficiency of the clerks throughout the office.
• Preservation of “fragile” or deteriorating documents was accomplished. The documents can now be stored and protected from handling by the public.  Backups of critical documents were created and became a part of their disaster recovery program.
• Signatures, notes, official stamps or other “non-electronic” markings on documents were digitally preserved in the process.

  With many years of experience in digitizing important documents, Syscon is your best choice for preservation services.  Call us for an analysis of your needs and a comprehensive quote for services.

  For more information, send an email to Customer Service