Whitpain Township Scanning History

From Whitpain Township:

If you walk through the halls of the on any given day, you will see a small army of interns carefully scanning and cataloging important Township documents, some dating as far back as 1929. 

The interns, along with a few staff members, are working on a comprehensive project to convert all available Township files into electronic files. 

“Our scanning initiative will yield a number of positive results,” said Whitpain Township Manager Roman Pronczak. “The biggest benefit is that all of our files, everything from building permits, to land development and subdivision plans, to meeting minutes will be available with a few simple clicks of a mouse.” 

Staff members will enjoy increased productivity because documents will be available to them from any computer, so instead of digging through dusty old filing cabinets they can access documents right from their desk. Transitioning these files to digital format also saves a significant amount of physical storage space that was consumed by years and years of archived documents.

Planning for the project started in the fall of 2011 and work began a few months later.  The project should take about three to five years to complete.  To illustrate the scope of the scanning initiative, interns recently completed the process of scanning 6,216 active sewer files.  These files represent a small sliver of all the documents accumulated over the years.

Interns working on the scanning project come from Wissahickon High School and Montgomery County Community College. Students from Wissahickon use the internship for their graduation project, while students from the community college receive credits for their internship.