The City of San Mateo Community Development Department (CDD) provides services related to land use and building construction, including building permits and inspections, planning permits, code enforcement, and neighborhood improvement and housing.

For over 15 years, the City has worked with BMI to scan hard copy plans to a digital format on a recurring basis. The scanning stayed consistent though improvements were made over time to create a more effective process. In the past few years, the City switched to BMI’s OLIS indexing system to mitigate the possibilities of incorrect or non-existent indexing data tied to the scanned images.

In the City’s offices, cabinets full of 16mm and 35mm microfiche constantly reminded staff that they needed to move toward digitization as the quality of the images and the tools to view the records were both degrading. After years of using the hard copy microfiche on a daily basis, the CDD decided it was time to get the microfiche scanned.

Along with the microfiche, the decision was made to include scanning over 500 boxes of Application records as well as re-evaluate the ongoing scanning of plans while also adding in permits, previously scanned in-house.