Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Records Archive Project topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
County clerk says Liberty County records restoration is 'well over halfway' complete
Summary
Liberty County Clerk Chambers told the commission the records archive restoration is more than 50% complete, with many small collections finished and indexed scans coming online; she warned of space constraints and said photostats are an urgent preservation priority.
The public hearing opened July 28 as the Liberty County Commissioner's Court considered continuing the records archive fund and the county's restoration project. The chair introduced the item and turned it over to Miss Chambers, the Liberty County county clerk, who provided a progress update.
"We are well over halfway," Chambers said, outlining that smaller collections such as birth certificates, death certificates and commissioner's court minutes have been restored. Chambers said the office is working through county court minutes and substantial probate material, and that deeds and deeds of trust have been indexed and are "ready to move up into our database." She described the project as ongoing and phased: "the books go out as the money comes in and the books go out, and then we apply it against it."
Chambers warned the commission about a growing space problem as restored volumes receive protective sleeves, which effectively increase the physical size of the books and are beginning to overwhelm existing shelving. She also identified photostats — older copies that look like negatives with white lettering on black-backed paper — as an urgent priority because the black backing is fading and the lettering is becoming unreadable. "Those are very, urgently needed to be restored and scanned and and preserved," she said.
Chambers provided a cost figure for restoration work, saying individual volumes can be expensive to restore: "They're about $3,000 a book." She emphasized that the clerk's office is simultaneously building a digital database and making high-quality scans available online so the public can read cursive records without handling heavy originals.
The chair closed the public hearing and the commission's regular meeting was set to begin in about five minutes. No formal motion or vote on funding was recorded during this hearing segment; Chambers framed the item as an update tied to continued collection of restoration fees.
