Rendering Records the Digital Way in Orange County
By Mary Jo Wagner

Why can't things just stay the way they are?" This is the question that faces Bob Jelinek most often. Perhaps it's also the one question he dreads the most. But he's grown used to defending his decisions and, when one is a pioneer of technological change, this sort of thing comes with the territory.
      As deputy county surveyor in the geomatics division of Orange County's Public Facility and Resource Department (PFRD), Jelinek has been part of several different teams that have proposed and pushed for a variety of technological transformations over the past 14 years. With the resolve of a plastic surgeon, he has been steadily nipping, tucking and removing the excess paper "fat" from the department- paper maps, paper drawings, paper reference documents, etc.-replacing all of them with digital solutions. Each new data conversion project has been met with the same resistance against changing workflow procedures.
      So when it came time for Jelinek to pioneer one of the last phases of the PFRD's digital transformation-a project that was the brainchild of county surveyor and geomatics division manager John Canas-he was prepared to take a defensive stance once again. At stake was the icing on the department's map-modernization cake: the development of a web-based retrieval and viewing system for the department's 250,000 pages of public records. Designed to run on an intranet, this web-enabled records system would put more than 100 years of countywide, land-based information at the fingertips of hundreds of colleagues, providing them with the opportunity to search and download data from any Internet-connected PC, at any time.
      To Jelinek's surprise, when the project was unveiled last year, he was met with a question he was unprepared to answer. "When can we start using this?" asked his colleagues. It was a refreshing change from the norm, said Jelinek, who helped create the proper environment to develop and implement one of the most advanced record retrieval systems in all of California.

Musical chairs
The geomatics division of the PFRD is responsible for compiling, managing and maintaining all land-related public records for the county. There are 28 different classifications of records, including tract maps, parcel maps, survey records, engineering drawings, and as-built drawings. Over the years there have been several methods of maintaining and storing these records, including hard-copy maps, index books, microfiche, and aperture cards. With such a rich source of land-based information, the geomatics division has been a critical data hub for many civic offices, receiving about 27,000 record requests annually-each of which has been given in person.
      These public records were used to build a geographic information system (GIS) seven years ago, one that contains the county's vector land-use basemap, 640,000 parcels, and aerial photography of the county. In the past, the records room has demanded this personal touch, mainly because the data have remained a separate faction of the PFRD's data archive. In addition, critical information contained in the records, such as details about how surveys were carried out on certain properties, was never converted into the GIS due to technical and budgetary constraints.
      Without digital access to the records, civic employees and the general public-who combine to make up about 80 percent of the PFRD's user base-have been forced to travel to the records room to search for and retrieve documents. This trip, often a daily occurrence and one that could easily eat up an hour of one's time, was not unlike a game of musical chairs. Here's how the game was played.
      Presuming that a customer arrived during regular office hours, he or she approached the front counter and explained to a staff member what sort of information was needed. This customer was referred to one of the wall-size index maps to locate the appropriate area of interest, and then recorded on paper the sheet number that indicated where the map was stored, as well as what the codes were for documents relevant to that area. When the piece of paper was carried back to the counter, the staff member began retrieving the material. First a reference was made to a desk-size index book-where all documents were cross-referenced-to find where the requested documents were stored (e.g., Book X, Page X). The employee then searched through the appropriate media-whether aperture cards, microfiche or hard-copy maps-and pulled out all the corresponding items. The customer then took the item(s) and moved to a microfiche machine or aperture card reader, or perhaps a table, to review the suitability of the material. If it wasn't the proper item, this process was repeated all over again until the correct information was found. At that point, the material had to go back to a staff member for reproduction.
      "This system is rather complex, it's cumbersome to use, and it requires the expertise of different staff depending upon your area of research," said Jelinek. "The documents themselves come in all different types of media, adding to the cumbersome process-aperture cards and microfiche require viewers, and hard-copy maps are quite large. And all of those media require us to use different methodologies to reproduce the documents.
      "We clearly needed to develop a better system to share data with other county groups, such as operations and maintenance departments that send people here every day to pull records," he continued. "The most effective method to do that was via the Web."
      And so, in the latter part of 1998, Canas decided to "stop the music" for good and issued an RFP to create the county's first-ever, web-based record viewing and retrieval system.

Making new music
In May 1999, this RFP was awarded to Canadian GIS software developer MRF Geosystems (www.mrf.com). Based in Calgary, Alberta, MRF was given not only the daunting task of converting more than 250,000 documents, but also the challenge of designing, building and implementing a web-based records system for use by both county personnel and the public. The system had to allow users to search, query, and retrieve public records (raster images) and vector GIS data via the Internet, data that had to be available around the clock.
      MRF elected to use Intergraph's GeoMedia Web Map software to create this new online system, easily integrating with the county's existing GIS that is based on Intergraph's Modular GIS Environment (MGE). Two additional products-MGE GeoData Manager that tracks property boundary histories, and MGE Parcel Manager-were also designed to run on top of the GIS.
      To begin, the staff at MRF needed to design a complete system that would meet the needs of the county's PFRD, from scanning and geo-referencing documents to collecting attributes, storing files, developing search criteria, and displaying query results. Once PFRD approved the design, MRF set about converting the data and building the system.
      An initial step involved preparing the records for data conversion. This required intensive work by geomatics division personnel who had to categorize, count, gather, index, and perform quality-control checks for each bit of data sent to MRF. Staff members then prioritized the records for conversion.
      The first priority for MRF involved the tract maps-legal instruments used to represent subdivided land-followed by parcel maps, records of surveys, and finally monument records, which are drawings or maps of land-boundary-related information. Each record was scanned to create a TIFF file. Attributes such as the surveyor's name, the date of the survey, and the company name were collected and stored in the database. Each TIFF was geo-referenced to within an accuracy of 10 feet and linked either to a geographic location or else to a specific feature within the county's vector land-information system.
      "The geo-referenced map ensures that it'll be displayed correctly as a backdrop to the vector map," explained Gary Zhang, president of MRF. "Allowing raster images such as a tract map to be displayed beneath the vector map is very helpful for surveyors, because they can readily see the relationships between the property boundaries.
      "For each text document, our staff scanned it in and then linked it to a geographic location or feature such as a bridge or street intersection," he added. "When people search for that location, the corresponding records will be listed and they can choose to download them."
      To date, all 250,000 records have been scanned and integrated into the new system. The operational intranet system is now available to civic personnel to give them access to the digital records.

Reducing travel time
Suffice it to say, the implementation of this web-based records system has been a new kind of music to Jelinek's ears, as well as to those of his colleagues. County employees can now search, query and retrieve public records and vector GIS data using a standard Web browser, plus the appropriate plug-in. Instead of time-consuming trips to the records room of the past, today users need only travel as far as their keyboard to obtain the information that is needed. Although the general public cannot yet access this system via the Internet, anyone can use the department's computer stations to search for records. There is no more waiting in line, no more waiting for a certain staff member to come and help, and no more aperture cards or microfiche or little bits of paper.
      "The substantial savings in time and money that we will glean with our web-based system is one of the most significant benefits we can readily gauge," said Jelinek. "We're saving people from having to walk down a couple of floors to people who call us from out of state who need information because they'll be doing a survey down here. Now research can be done 24 hours a day." He went on to add, "We estimate that the online system will save both the public and private sector a total of $1.7 million annually."

Thousands of datasets, one gateway
Users are met with a vector basemap when they enter the system, and they can search by zooming in to an area, by entering a street intersection, by using coordinates, or by typing in a specific document code. With location searches, users draw a polygon around their area of interest, and the system returns a more detailed map with a list of links to all land records available within that polygon. For document searches, users can look for any type of document based upon its attributes, whether by company name, surveyor's name or filing date.
      "By integrating both the GIS data and the public records together to create a centralized data pool, we can now provide a more comprehensive data archive to users," said Jelinek. "I would imagine that many people probably didn't even know we had certain data available. And now, with one query, they can see a whole range of documents available and retrieve them in seconds."
      Maintenance of these records has gone from weekly updates using a manual approach, to daily updates using an automated workflow approach. Historically, a staff member would compile a list of every new document that had been filed and stored within the previous week. He or she would dig out the appropriate maps and begin updating them, inscribing the specific codes for each type of document onto the relevant area on that map. If a customer wanted to check out that particular map, staff personnel was forced to give it up, and the updating process would be delayed until the map was returned.
      Under the current process, new records are scanned in and geo-referenced, attributes are collected, and the appropriate links are made to geographic locations. Quality control is carried out at the time that the record is inserted into the system, thus allowing any errors to be caught more quickly. This process now takes less than 15 minutes per project to complete.
      With a single data pool, the geomatics division can ensure that the information available in the system is the most up-to-date, a benefit it could not previously provide. "Before, we had to send records out to have aperture cards made, which could take a month," recalled Jelinek. "And the cards weren't always complete. They'd be returned without the attributes punched in. So we're making the data available at least 30 days quicker than before, and it's more accurate."

A new question
Based on the response to the new online system, Jelinek plans to expand the database to include other datasets from other departments, including offsite design documents and as-built plans. He hopes to arrange Internet portals for the system by summer 2001, which will open the system up to a nationwide audience.
      Interest in PFRD's web-based records system has come from the private sector and from other county colleagues. In fact Jelinek, along with MRF, recently provided a demo of the system to personnel from Los Angeles County, receiving rave reviews in the process. Jelinek's phone is constantly ringing, but unlike the past when he was greeted with the question, "Are my records ready yet?" now he hears, "When can I have a demo of this system?" As the system's appeal continues to grow, this may now be the question that Jelinek faces the most.

About the Author:
Mary Jo Wagner is a Vancouver-based freelance writer who specializes in geospatial technology. She can be reached by telephone at (604) 221-4540, or via e-mail at [email protected].

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