FRANKFORT, Ky. – August 26, 2014 – (RealEstateRama) — Reminiscent of the final warehouse scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, more than 190,000 cardboard boxes being relocated to the new Kentucky State Records Center in Frankfort are filled with history of the Commonwealth.
The Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives (KDLA), Public Records Division, is in the process of moving the State Records Center to a new leased building at 1425 Leestown Road in Frankfort from two long-term rented facilities. The move from the space rented from Buffalo Trace Distillery began April 23 and was completed far ahead of schedule. Instead of the projected three months to move the records, it only took 38 working days.
The State Records Center provides high-volume, low-cost storage and retrieval services to state government agencies for records with a limited retention period or for permanent records that are still in frequent use. The Records Center’s storage service for state agencies decreases storage costs for records in state government and provides archives and records management expertise for public officials.
Once the retention period has been met, the records stored at the center are either transferred to the KDLA main building on Coffee Tree Road in Frankfort for permanent storage in the archives or are destroyed.
Last fiscal year, the center fulfilled more than 14,000 requests from agencies for files to be returned and/or copied. About 100 state agencies, including the Administrative Office of the Courts, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the Department of Corrections, store records at the center.
“There are a lot of instances where state government intersects with individual citizens,” said Barbara Teague, director of the Public Records Division and State Archivist and Records Administrator at KDLA.
“Government records document government, secure individual rights and promote history. These records are important not only because they document the policies and actions of government, but because they protect individual rights,” she said.
The original paper records date back to the early part of the twentieth century, and include records from various state agencies and many circuit courts in Kentucky. The Records Center provides this centralized and efficient storage and retrieval service, but access to the records is only available through the records officer of each agency, rather than from the records center directly. Records at the State Archives in the main KDLA building are available for public use.
It provides a centralized and efficient storage and retrieval service, but access to the records is only available through each agency, rather than from the records center directly. Records at the state archives in the main KDLA building are available for public use.
The records include court documents, such as civil and criminal cases including divorce records; adoptions files; finger print cards; social worker case files; state personnel information; police investigations and corrections records from many prisons in Kentucky. There are even patient records from the old Eastern State Hospital dating from the 1800s, but they are restricted because of privacy laws.
“The Records Center staff, especially Records Center Supervisor Steve Shackelford, have done outstanding work in vacating the Buffalo Trace building. We estimated three months for the first move as a best-case scenario, but they have moved the records twice as fast as projected. They are currently relocating records from pallets to shelves in the new building,” said Teague.
But the move is far from over. KDLA will soon begin moving 60,000 boxes of records from the East Main Street rented facility to the new building. That move should be completed by the end of 2014, said Teague.
The new facility is 100,000 square feet, an increase from the combined 73,000 square feet at the two old buildings. It nearly doubles the possible storage space because of the increase in square footage and increased height of the shelving storage units. As a result, Kentucky will have an improved records center storage service available to state government.
Teague said the old buildings were not built for storing records but the new facility is purpose-built, meeting national standards for temperature and humidity controls and security. Shackelford said the records are in paper form because it is generally cheaper to maintain records in the format in which they were created, and these records not going to be kept or retrieved long enough to warrant the expense of the conversion.
Shackelford said there are numerous advantages to the new facility. “It’s all in one building on one floor. In the old building you had to go up and down an elevator with one pallet at a time, or up and down a stairway to reach storage shelves.”
Even while the move is ongoing, Shackelford said the staff continues to serve agencies by retrieving records and getting new inventory every day making the process never ending.
You can follow the progress of the move on Twitter @KYStateArchives and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kdla.prd
KDLA provides equitable access to quality library and information resources and services, as well as helps public agencies ensure that legislatively mandated documentation of government programs is created, efficiently maintained and made accessible. For more information on KDLA resources, programs and services visit www.kdla.ky.gov or call 502-564-8300 ext. 315.
