Large-scale court record digitizing project seeing significant progress

At the Board of Supervisors meeting this Monday, Chancery Clerk Donna Hardy gave an update on the digitizing of court records, both Chancery and Circuit.

Hardy began by thanking the Board for allowing the project before praising the digitizing team for their efforts.

“The team has been with us for a couple of extra days, going above and beyond what we thought due to the size of the project, but they wrapped up at 9 p.m. on Friday,” said Hardy.

Hardy went on to explain that there are multiple stages to this project, this being akin to a first draft.

“Stage one is almost complete,” said Hardy. “Within 45 days from this time, we, not the public, should be able to access this information, the dirty stage.”

Though the public will eventually have access to these records, they will need to wait until the process is complete.

When asked by Supervisor Shawn Jackson if any of the records might have been lost entirely due to damage, etc., Hardy replied, “Even with the damaged ones, they tried their best to put them back together… They can enhance it right there to a point where they can adjust the resolution on almost every page if necessary. Then, when they go back, it will be taken to the next stage of cleaning, cropping… Then anything that remains illegible, they can pull it up and darken that print, so you should be able to see everything.”

Hardy added that some of this script might be hard to read simply due to the nature of the script itself, old calligraphy, etc.,

“But you’re definitely going to be able to see it,” Hardy assured.

Hardy ended by reminding that the process is still far from complete.

“The whole phase may extend into 2024. This is a long process, but that’s why they try to give us the most raw form as soon as possible, so if you have a request, we can search it digitally without having to pull those books,” said Hardy.