Minutes - Goodhue County
Minutes - Goodhue County
Minutes - Goodhue County
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GOODHUE COUNTY TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE<br />
MINUTES<br />
<strong>County</strong> Board Room<br />
October 2, 2006<br />
9:00 a.m.<br />
Present: Ted Seifert, Jim Bryant, Randy Johnson, Peg Sorenson, Lisa Hanni, Denise<br />
Landau, Bonnie Stang, Jason Peterson, Kristi Gross, Steve Betcher, Yvonne<br />
Black, Deb Deden, Judy Johnson, Julie Huneke, Dale Marty, and Andrea Benck.<br />
Laser Fische Demo<br />
Denise Landau gave a brief overview of a laser fiche product that Public Health has been using.<br />
Laser fiche acts as a safeguard for public records, can help support public service, can simplify<br />
agendas and allows you to share information more easily. The product also would allow staff to<br />
share information more effectively, protect from unauthorized access or alterations, reduce paper<br />
and paper related costs and would be long term document accessible.<br />
L. Hanni asked if the document was scanned to a special file. D. Landau stated that it creates a<br />
TIF file.<br />
L. Hanni pointed out that there are a lot of confidential documents in her files and questioned<br />
how that would be handled.<br />
S. Betcher felt that this process would take a lot of staff time. Departments would need to make<br />
the decision to scan the entire file and have it electronically, or not scan the entire file and then<br />
keep the hard copy. In that situation, the county would be doing it for nothing. Ideally, a whole<br />
new file should be created to replace the hard copy. The important thing was that all of the<br />
documents in the original file are in the scanned file.<br />
J. Bryant asked if it would be possible to create a password sign in to receive confidential<br />
information.<br />
S. Betcher felt that it would be much more time consuming to separate what was public<br />
information and what was not.<br />
Mike West representing Crabtree joined the group by telephone conference. T. Seifert asked<br />
how the county would deal with files that contained confidential information. M. West stated<br />
that there was a tool that would black out portions of the document. The other thing to keep in<br />
mind is that just because this was public information, the county would not have to display this<br />
laser fiche to the public. The public could come in to the office and obtain a copy of it, just like<br />
they do now. M. West suggested that all of the information that was converted to laser fiche be<br />
kept internal for the time being. If someone from the public comes in and makes a request for a<br />
file, at that time staff could open the file on laser fiche and use the blacking out tool to black out<br />
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the confidential portion of the document. The first step of this entire process should be to get all<br />
of the documents scanned.<br />
L. Hanni asked if each department needed to have a laser fiche scanner. M. West suggested that<br />
the county setup workstations that a number of departments work off of. L. Hanni commented<br />
that she already had a nice scanner and did not want to spend the money on another. M. West<br />
stated that there were a number of scanners that would work with the program. If the scanner is<br />
not compatible with the program, then they could scan the document to pdf. and drop the pdf file<br />
into the laser fiche software.<br />
M. West noted that this program contained five different layers of security. They can also setup<br />
the program to have global access. L. Hanni asked if every computer would need to have the<br />
software. M. West agreed but this could be done through the web. There is also a client<br />
interface and a web interface.<br />
S. Betcher asked about maintenance on the scanners. A lot of the documents in the vault are<br />
dusty and dirty. M. West stated that wiping it down with a dry cloth after using it and a weekly<br />
wipe down with soap and water would be sufficient.<br />
S. Betcher asked how much server space was needed for this. M. West stated that the<br />
information could be stored on any server and 100 gig would be sufficient. Blue Earth and<br />
Anoka <strong>County</strong> currently use this program, in addition to a large number of cities. R. Johnson<br />
asked if Blue Earth and Anoka had policies on this. M. West agreed that they did.<br />
R. Johnson noted that the city of Red Wing hired a number of interns to scan their documents.<br />
L. Hanni suggested that Public Health continue to use the product and work out any bugs.<br />
A. Benck asked about the information in the vault. A lot of the items there belonged to Court<br />
Administration. She asked the First Judicial District was doing anything with their documents.<br />
Y. Black stated that the state pays a company to come in and take their files and scan them to an<br />
electronic version. They keep the files and all that is left is the electronic version. Eventually,<br />
the files in the vault that belong to Court Administration will not be there.<br />
L. Hanni noted that this process would definitely be a workload issue.<br />
T. Seifert asked about the cost. R. Johnson and P. Sorenson will pull together numbers for cost.<br />
P. Sorenson noted that in order for this program to be effective, it would need to be global.<br />
S. Betcher stated that each department would need to have a reliable person doing the scanning.<br />
Each file would need to be gone through. Also, if the county chose to go through with this, then<br />
the entire file should be electronic rather then both.<br />
L. Hanni noted that she already had a lot of the files electronically and was not sure there was a<br />
need to convert them to laser fiche.<br />
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J. Bryant suggested that each department work with IT to review what materials they have in the<br />
vault and if laser fiche could help their department. He suggested using the second floor of the<br />
Public Health building as a work station for scanning.<br />
L. Hanni stated that this would be talked about again at the Management Team.<br />
Next meeting: November 28 at 8:15 a.m.<br />
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