At the recent International Institute of Municipal Clerks (IIMC) conference in Atlanta, attendees participated in educational sessions, networked with colleagues and spoke with a variety of technology vendors. As always, Laserfiche users were among the conference’s most visible and enthusiastic attendees, and we’d like to thank everyone who stopped by our booth to say hello and to see Laserfiche 8 in action.

We also presented several awards at the conference. Tina Ward Shuart of Cobleskill, NY, received the Achievement Award for her diligence in making Laserfiche a key part of the city’s business processes. Her office currently stores a wide variety of documents—from legislative board minutes to birth, marriage and death records—in Laserfiche, and she has plans to bring planning and zoning documents into the system as well.

Laserfiche CEO Nien-Ling Wacker presents an Achievement Award to Tina Ward Shuart.

“Laserfiche is a tremendous time-saver—searches that used to take minutes or even hours now take seconds,” she says. She also appreciates the fact that Laserfiche protects critical documents and records from damage or destruction, a topic on many clerks’ minds in the wake of recent flooding in the Midwest.

Another award recipient, Carol Jacobs of Ocean City, MD, says that Laserfiche has made her workday a lot easier—literally. “We used to store our minutes on microfiche, which is difficult to search and a real strain on the eyes,” she explains. “We appreciate how easy it is to find information in Laserfiche and how rapidly we can bring new documents into the system.”

Because staff in the clerk’s office have been so successful with Laserfiche, Ocean City plans to extend the system to additional departments, including planning and zoning and the fire marshal’s office. “I never pass up an opportunity to promote Laserfiche to the city manager and city council,” Jacobs notes. “I tell them that Laserfiche helps us serve the public a lot faster.”

Beverly Brown of Highland Beach, FL, sums up many clerks’ feelings when she talks about Laserfiche. “I use the system constantly—it’s an extremely valuable research tool. I also like the fact that it gives us so much control over which documents users can access. You don’t get that level of security when you’re dealing with file cabinets.”

Brown has belonged to the IIMC for more than three decades, and she’s noticed a few changes over the years. “The educational sessions are a lot more crowded than they used to be. Everyone has to keep up with the latest technology, and the conference is an excellent opportunity to learn about new systems.”

Attendees stop by the Laserfiche booth to say hello.

Brown also benefits from hearing the conference speakers share their firsthand experience. For example, at this year’s conference, she attended an emergency management session led by someone involved in the Hurricane Katrina clean-up efforts, and his comments led Brown to rethink aspects of her own disaster recovery plan. “He showed me that some items just aren’t as important as I thought they were,” she says.

Shuart, Jacobs and Brown all agree that the networking opportunities are one of the conference’s highlights. “When you sit down at lunch, the other people at the table ask where you’re from, what problems you’ve faced and how you’ve solved them,” Jacobs says. “This year, everyone was talking about tighter budgets and how to do more with your existing resources. Needless to say, Laserfiche plays a role in that discussion, because it significantly reduces the amount of time necessary to find and organize information.”

“At the conference, it’s always interesting to talk to other clerks who use Laserfiche, and to ask them about how they’ve set up their system,” Shuart adds. “I also take the time to stop by the booth to talk to Laserfiche staff, ask questions about the software and even pass along the occasional suggestion. I certainly wouldn’t know Laserfiche as well as I do if it weren’t for the IIMC.”

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Tags: Local Government

Posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 7:14 am under UserNews. You can comment on this article. trackback from your own site.