Town records now just a click away

In the past, you’d have to drive to the town clerk’s office, tell Town Clerk Alison Kaiser or one of her assistants exactly what year the information was recorded, and wait for someone to thumb through the heavy paper volumes in the office.

“The indexing system was very weak,” Kaiser said. “We had no way to search documents by topic.”

Today, those records are just a click away. Under a partnership between the town clerk’s office and CompBase Inc., a Rhode Island digital archiving firm, many of Stowe’s town records are now available, fully indexed, on the town Web site, www.townofstowevt.org. Users can even search the text in the scanned documents.

“This is huge,” Kaiser said. “Not only does it make things easier for my office and, more importantly, anyone looking up records, it allows for better transparency in government.”

Kaiser began looking into the software, known as ClerkBase, two years ago. The software is generally used to archive the minutes of meetings, but Kaiser asked the company if it could archive other town records, as well.

“They were very flexible with our needs,” she said.

So far, the online records — include town meeting information, appointments and oaths, a copy of the town charter, contracts, agreements and election results — go back only to 2005, but Kaiser plans to scan town documents back to 1962.

“My hope is it will enable people to have a better understanding of how we got to where we are as a town,” she said.

Kaiser said some files, such as land records and birth and death certificates, would be difficult to post on the Internet without violating privacy laws; those limitations are now being reviewed.

In the meantime, Kaiser plans to post town ordinances and other public information on the Web site.

The project is funded by the preservation fund of the town clerk’s office; it’s fed by user fees for scanning documents.

Colchester is the only other Vermont town using the software now.

Kaiser encouraged people who use the Web site to send suggestions and comments by e-mail to akaiser@townofstowevermont.org.