When Christchurch City Council’s decided its vast collection of property files needed to be digitised, Desktop Imaging created a scanning bureau that could meet all of its requirements.

Thanks to Desktop Imaging’s specialist scanning equipment, which includes production scanners, research scanners and large format scanners, the on-site bureau is able to generate an average of 90 property files per day and more than 2.5 million images per annum.

The successful one-year pilot programme ended in July 2010 and Desktop Imaging continued providing its services with 14 full-time staff plus the use of casual employees from August 2010.

The Council’s files are now backed up and easily accessible, while the introduction of a small fee for accessing files has ensured the exercise is self-funding. The Council’s demand for digitisation projects is growing even further as its different business units see the benefits and start funding their own programmes of work.

The first Canterbury earthquake forced us to move out of the Council Tuam Street premises into our Sydenham premises where we continued to carry responsibility for digitising CCC’s Property Files through all the major earthquakes with minimal interruption of service.

We are proud of several innovations introduced to streamline the process of delivering Property Files in the electronic realm benefiting internal and external Council customers.  We completed our contract in July 2012.

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