Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 33, Number 12, 1 December 2016 — State makes progress on digitizing vital records [ARTICLE]

State makes progress on digitizing vital records

The state Bureau of Conveyances is midway through its four-step goal to digitize 170 years of Hawai'i's vital records dating back to 1845. A Michigan-based company, U.S Imaging, received a $1.35 million contract for the first two phases, whieh included scanning 35 million microfilms that served as the original backups to 5,500 reference books, then the reference books themselves. The cumulative page count exceeds 3.3 million. Department of Land and Natural Resources Chair Suzanne Case says the upcoming third phase is to doubleeheek the scanned images to ensure that they are in the best format possible for reproduction and access. The hnal phase will simply be to make the records viewable to anyone with a computer. While the project is underway, reference books and microfilms will still be open for review at the Bureau of Conveyances public referenee room, whieh is open weekdays from 8: 15 a.m. to 4: 15 p.m. ■