Longboat residents to gain access to digital records within months

Wondering what the Town Commission talked about in May 1967?

Interested how the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort was approved in November 1972? 

Curious why the Town Commission rezoned the Key in 1985?

All of that information and more soon will be available for public browsing at Town Hall on a searchable database staffers have been building for almost a year.

The catalog includes more than 17,000 documents, said Information Technology Director Jason Keen. Many are more than 100 pages long. At least one is more than 1,000 sheets.

“I was kind of surprised, we’ve had a lot of interest from the employees,” Keen said. “Most people want to get rid of paper.”

Each department has its own budget for scanning and verifying its records, although only about half of the departments eligible for digitizing records have started the process,  Keen said.

Among departments digitizing are the Town Clerk’s Office, responsible for governing documents, the Building, Planning and Zoning Department, accountable for permits and zoning, and the Finance Department, liable for invoices.

All of those documents are scanned and uploaded to a software system called Laserfishe, a program the town paid $50,000 to acquire, learn how to operate and get a license for internal use.

The public kiosk for viewing these documents could be available within “a few months,” Keen wrote in an email.