The other day while visiting a customer I thought I was going to have to quickly find a Kleenex or a fire extinguisher. She was at the point of an emotional rage-enduced breakdown. What was the cause? Microfiche. Tight resources has everyone in this public office doing double duty anyway, but the constituents are always first. So in the middle of tackling the normal daily challenges she gets a call, “I need a copy of a resolution that I think was made in 1979.” “Yes, ma’am, can you narrow down the date to a month?” “Oh honey, I don’t even know if I got the right year!” So what does this mean for our duty bound hanky-in-hand warrior?
Slaying the Dinosaur!
Descending the steps to it’s chamber our warrior steals her resolve, “I will not fail…this time!” Turning the corner she spies her nemesis sitting nonchalantly next to a file cabinet that bears its “children.” Offspring of another era, wrapped in tight little rolls with dates ranging from yesterday to the early 1900′s. Somewhere in there the information lies, the challenge is coaxing it out from among thousands of images on a machine that has no readily accessible spare parts and for which most repair stores only sigh at when requested to give aide. Three hours later the “resolution” is found and our gallant warrior, exhilarated, calls her constituent to claim the prize – only to discover that the constituent’s grandson already found it on the web. Fire extinguisher!
There has got to be an easier way! Convert those images into an electronic image that can be saved and indexed onto a shared drive, or better yet, placed into a Enterprise Content Management System (ECM), that makes finding these resources not only easily accessible on your computer but in most cases can be emailed to the constituent before they hang up the phone. Then have an office party and move the slain dragon outside and send it to retirement with its long lost friend the mimeograph machine!
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