Courthouse books to be microfilmed for retention

Many books from the auditor's office will soon be stored on microfilm, thanks to an upwards vote from the Pulaski County Commissioners during their regular session on Monday, Oct. 2. Keeping in mind some of the past challenges the county has faced with courthouse document retention, Auditor Laura Wheeler said that the auditor's office alone has over 600 books that need to be safely stored. She explained to the commissioners Monday that the state has informed her that if they digitize the books and put them into two forms of digitization, one being microfilm, then the books could be destroyed. With that, she noted that the cost of translating the PDF files that they have scanned into microfilm would cost about $12,000 for close to 1,000 books. Auditor Wheeler said that she has the money to help pay for it. The commissioners ultimately approved the agreement with Inception Technologies.