CD-ROM record storage has two-year payback

For several decades, microfiche or microfilm effectively solved the issue of storing outdated government records. With microfilm technology, however, data retrieval is often difficult and the microfilm viewing and printing equipment is not very user friendly. Instead of using a microfilm, Travis County in Central Texas has taken full advantage of a new process from PSI Technologies, Austin, Texas, that allows computer output reports to be recorded directly from computer systems to CD-ROM disks.

In addition to allowing instant acces to records, the new CD-ROM based system also saves the county more than $30,000 a year according to Travis County Records Manager Paul Gulick. He says he wanted a system that could meet county requirements of low cost, flexibility and high standards of performance and also offered CD-ROM report processing, indexing and retrieval software.

“CD-ROM can be very slow unless the retrieval software uses searching methods,” he says. “We needed a supplier that had developed indexing methods for large mainframe systems, as well as UNIX, OS/2, NT, Macintosh and PC platforms.”

The software component of the system provides a dramatic increase in the retrieval speed which is key to the success of the system in Travis County. The county’s system also features additional document imaging components. “Our supplier had to find the CD-ROM mastering software, document scanning software combined with their Computer Output to Laser Disk (COLD) software and put it all together,” Gulick says.

A major concern in adopting a new method of data storage for Travis County was compatibility. “With traditional Write Once Read Many (WORM) drives, optical disk files often won’t work on another optical disk drive, at least not with any high rate of success,” Gulick says. “CD-ROM, on the other hand, had already adopted industry-recognized standards [ISO 9660] that allowed any good CD to read with a CD-ROM drive.”

With the new system, data from various types of machines or departments is retrievable as along as users have a CD-ROM drive and the retrieval software. CD-ROM also has a cost advantage over other optical disk technology. Optical drives could cost as much as $25,000 a system, while drives for CD-ROM are well under $1,000, including installation, cards and cables.

Gulick recommends that government agencies in the market for an imaging system consider a COLD-based system that provides integration with off-the-shelf document imaging products. Immediate savings are realized through migration of expensive Direct Access Storage Device on-line electronic warehouse space for computer output reports into less expensive “near-line” technology.

“We calculate a two-year payback on our investment, and that’s if the only thing we do is take these computer reports off the AS400 Financial System,” Gulick says. Since installation in June 1994, more than six million pages have been converted to CD-ROM with an estimated 25 million more pages to be archived in 1996 without an increase in staff.

Many departments have shared in the benefits of the new system:

* Child Support stores all inactive cases on the CD-ROM system;

* The District Attorney’s Office accesses Austin Police Department information;

* The Tax Office retrieves information on property and ownership provided by the Travis County Appraisal District;

* The County Auditor transferred its Payroll and General Ledger Reports to CD-ROM; and,

* The County Clerk’s Office makes deed index information, liens, marriages, assumed names and judgments available to the public.

And, says Gulick, additional applications are being found for many other departments.

“The organizations that stand to benefit from this type of system are those generating large volumes of computer printouts and computer output microfiche and those purchasing more on-line disk space annually. That’s basically anyone involved in city and county government.”