An inside look into the digitization process of state records

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - Thousands of important state records are kept at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.

As we head into a new decade, staff continue their work to preserve these documents in digital form.

At SCDAH you can find deeds, land records dating back to Colonial times, important court documents like the court petition for Briggs v. Elliott, and journals from the State House.

WIS got an exclusive look at the digitization process of how that is done the other day.

Nearly all the records they scan are available online for the public to view.

Officials said thanks to improvements to technology the process has become a little easier and so far they have digitized about half a million records.

Bryan Collars is the Electronic Records and Imaging Supervisor. He said, “The importance and value of holding historic documents is understanding their context. That to me is the really interesting thing about archives.”

According to Collars they plan on putting up more than 60,000 images of state land records online in 2020.

Copyright 2020 WIS. All rights reserved.