Examples of Shared Services Projects

Disaster Management

• A County could establish an electronic storage vault that would allow local governments within the county to back up their vital electronic records at an offsite facility. The Coordinator could also work with the governments on establishing disaster plans. 

Document Conversion and Access:

• With the assistance of over $600,000 in LGRMIF grants Tompkins County established the Tompkins Shared Services Electronic Records Repository (TSSERR), a Laserfiche-powered digital archive that is hosted by the county.  Starting with 20 partnered government agencies, including the City of Ithaca, TSSERR has grown to include every municipality in Tompkins County. TSSERR has also recently expanded to include Cortland County and five additional municipalities in that neighboring county.

Historical Records

• One local government could set up a climate-controlled storage area, along with a research room for the public, to provide storage and reference to its historical records and those of its partnering local governments. In this way, all the records are properly stored and preserved, and the public need only visit one facility to conduct research on one county or area.  
• A group of local governments could establish a website and hire an archivist to create finding aids to all their historical documents and upload these to the website. Also, some or all the historical records could be scanned, indexed, and made available on the website. One government can host and maintain the site for the benefit of all.

Inactive Records

• The Town of Hamburg in western New York established a records center which it shares with the Village of Hamburg, the Village of Blasdell, and Hamburg Center School District. Using LGRMIF grant funds, the participants purchased records management software to track their records and each has remote access to the software. Town personnel retrieve the records when needed. A committee consisting of representatives of each participating local government meets periodically to work out any disagreements or problems.
• The Town and Village of Lake George collaborated on a shared services inactive records storage project. Housed by the town and outfitted with mobile shelving, the town and village now have a secure, environmentally controlled space in which to store their records. 
• Putnam County offers records storage to all Putnam County towns for a small fee. This fee includes retrieval and delivery of records when needed and the costs of disposing of the records when its retention period expires. Every town in the county but one takes advantage of these services.