Page last updated on October 20, 2023 at 11:12 am
For more information, please contact
Scott Robinson, Director of Planning & Transportation robisos@bloomington.in.gov
The Challenge
According to the EPA, the average office worker produces about 2 pounds of paper and cardboard waste every single day. It is estimated that, collectively, American offices use about 4 million tons of copy paper every year. That’s the equivalent of chopping down 100 million trees! Recycling a single ton of paper saves ~17 trees.
At Bloomington’s City Hall, paper files are taking up a considerable chunk of office space. Why so much paper? For one, government entities are legally required to keep hard copies of some of these files. Some could contain crucial institutional knowledge or important information necessary for proper documentation to take place. (Some files date back to the early 1970s or earlier!) The physical storage of these documents create risks of losing, misplacing, or damaging files unintentionally due to an accident. The antiquated system has presented challenges for storage, archival efforts, and sustainability.
What if the City could not just save trees but also retain important, historic documents?
The Idea
The Planning and Transportation Department issued a request for quotes to firms specializing in converting documents to digital files. After a thorough selection process, Director of Planning & Transportation, Scott Robinson selected one firm to convert all digitized files into a catalog system where 100% of files are searchable by text!
The Cost
The cost to digitize over five decades of documents cost the City $93,000.
The Benefits
The City can now rely on long-term maintenance and access to files, historical records, and data well into the future. The opportunity costs of creating new physical office space once needed for document storage are evident in improving the retention, security, and access of information. Not only that, it saves staff time that would have been spent searching, organizing, filing, and storing paper documents, as well as minimizing department resources used, and limiting negligence and institutional costs imposed by not meeting legal retention standards. Less paper wasted, less time wasted, less hassle!
Metadata
Department(s): Planning & Transportation, ITS
Department Point(s) of Contact: Scott Robinson
Partner(s): Cliff Ingham
Partner Point(s) of Contact: n/a
Type of Innovation: Technical / Data Analysis
Date Implemented: March 2023