Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Digital Records topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee approves $6,000 for searchable PDF metadata on public records after IT review
Summary
The committee approved up to $6,000 to add metadata tags to document PDFs ("Meditag PDFs") so records become searchable; IT recommended outsourcing the metadata tagging rather than attempting an in-house parse without field definitions.
The committee considered two vendor quotes related to making historical PDF documents searchable. One vendor quote was substantially higher; a smaller option for metadata-tagged PDFs at about $6,000 was presented as a pragmatic, immediate step.
IT staff said an in-house solution would require clarifying which database fields are relevant and would likely be more labor-intensive than the smaller vendor quote. "As far as doing an in house, it's not undoable. We just need to know what fields we're looking for," the IT representative said.
Given the uncertainty about database fields and in-house labor, the committee approved spending up to $6,000 to obtain Meditag PDF conversion so records become more easily searchable. The committee waived a second reading and asked IT to report back on longer-term options for fully parsing the assessor and other systems if commissioners want a more extensive, integrated solution.
No procurement problems were raised; staff said the small contract would allow users to search by metadata while staff evaluates a larger in-house or outsourced database parsing project.
