Jon C. Miller knows how important his work is as Porter County Chief Deputy Recorder. In fact, Miller and his team have taken great care to preserve and digitize all documents in their care.
As the Chief Deputy Recorder, Miller and his colleagues in the recorder’s office ensure that all county documents are recorded and preserved.
“We are a public service office,” said Miller. “We take great pride in making sure all records are handled and maintained in an accurate, efficient, responsible, and professional manner.”
As a public entity, the Recorder’s Office maintains official records such as deeds, mortgages, and discharge papers. These records have been kept since the origin of Porter County and protecting them is critical.
“Back when Porter County became a county in 1836, the recording process was to handwrite documents,” said Miller. “That method of recording continued until our office began using typewriters in 1899.”
Of course, maintaining 180-year-old plus documents is difficult.
“It’s our responsibility to keep these books forever for public record,” said Miller. “Over time, they get a little dirty. The biggest problem is the way the books were created. There was a high acidity rate in the ink used for writing and the paper itself–causing detrimental issues with books.”
To protect these records, the Recorder’s Office is safeguarding the original pages via rebinding and restoration services.
“We’ve hired the HF Group to restore the books,” said Miller. “They come in and pick up a portion of the books from us and take them back to their office.”
Preserving records since 1821, the HF Group has aligned with the Recorder’s Office to treat each page and preserve it in an archival sleeve.
“The HF group performs their rebinding and the restoring of records following guidelines dictated by the Library of Congress and the American Institute for Conservation,” said Miller.
Putting each page in its own individual sleeve both protects it forever and splits a 600 page book into a 300 page, expertly bound book.
“This is much more functional for people to get access to these records and restore them forever,” said Miller. “Making sure our records are kept forever is something we take very seriously.”
An added benefit is that this preservation process has not added any financial burden on the taxpayers. Funded completely by fees collected in the Recorder’s Office, Miller and his team plan to continue this process throughout this year and to completion.
Some of the record books being restored are also available on microfilm.
“Our goal is to coordinate so that we will always have all records accessible at one time,” said Miller. “To do that, we had to kind of pick and choose what we're going to have taken out at any given time.”
Using this careful process, the Recorder’s Office is both maintaining its records for posterity and also protecting community access.
“We were preserving about 40 books at a time,” said Miller. “The HF Group will deliver the next batch they just completed and then pick up new ones to take back to their lab. We feel very confident that any record is accessible at all times because they have either been preserved or digitized.”
Always planning ahead, Miller is now looking into additional storage options for the preserved records.
To learn more about the Porter County Recorder’s Office and Porter County Government, please visit porterco.org.