Although the Pitkin County Clerk and Recorder’s Office archives records from 1977-present in a digital recording system, records prior to 1977 were archived in two rooms on a combination of books and microfilm.

Any time a citizen needed a pre-1977 record, historical books and microfilm had to be accessed. It was a time intensive process for not only the general public, but also the Pitkin County staff. Pitkin County had been systematically digitizing the County records and had plans to digitize the records on books and microfilm, but price was always an issue.

Linda Gustafson, Chief Deputy, states, “We continued to re-visit the issue of scanning our older records, but found microfilm scanning approaches too expensive.”

Gustafson continues, “Digital ReeL was a fast, inexpensive solution that gave us digital access to over 100 years of historical, recorded documents within a few weeks. It has proven to be a vastly more affordable solution with immediate payback results.”