City Goes "Paperless"

Imaging101 President Jacob Russo, City Treasurer Pam Reves, and Assistant City Administrator Kim Alderfer Flank the Donated Kodak i-1420 Scanner

This week the City of Greensburg received a very generous gift from a Weston, Florida-based company, Imaging101. Company President Jacob Russo arrived in town on Monday and presented City Hall with a paperless document storage system, along with a scanner donated by the Kodak corporation. He stayed several days to get the system set up and help staff learn how to use this new technology.

The idea for making this generous donation came from Imaging101’s Cari Ramos, head of their technology department. She read about Greensburg building back as a model green community after the May 2007 tornado devastated the community, and as Russo explains it, “Something clicked. The town had lost all of its infrastructure and we asked, ‘How can we help?’” After spending time in Greensburg, Russo is amazed with how the town has come together. “It’s all fantastic – very daring.”

Imaging101 has been a green advocate for a long time, and has helped companies throughout the U.S. and Canada reduce their paper use with great results. Their stated goal is to “help companies improve business while helping the earth by converting paper to digital information.” The Kodak corporation manufactures what Ramos describes as “the best scanner on the market”.

Ramos has a passion for the Green Initiative and is enthuasiastically supportive of what the community is trying to accomplish. She describes herself as a big “tree person” and is quick to point out how many trees are saved by using this type of system. One ream of paper (500 sheets) uses up the equivalent of 6% of a tree. You can see how this would quickly add up.

Studies show that the average piece of paper in an office is photocopied 19 times. Using this new “green” technology, the City of Greensburg will be able to much more efficiently retrieve and email documents. Says City Treasurer Pam Reves, “I’m just so excited. This technology will be great for us, and the scanner is wonderful. We never could have afforded it otherwise.” She projects that the City’s paper consumption will be cut in half, and the time that staff has to spend looking for documents will be radically decreased. The staff scanned a 200-page book in about 10 minutes, with the scanner doing the work of automatically copying pages on both sides. Very impressive.

To read more about Imaging101, check out their website here.

Comments

[Richard Naylor]

I applaud your courage and determination to implement a totally new system that, while challenging old habits, will help to reduce paper usage and waste.
However, I am concerned about the carbon footprint of this new technology. Have you even estimated it's impact on the environment?
I love the Internet and what computers are doing for us in creating work efficiency, but I am learning that all of these electronic wonders consume a lot of energy and have huge carbon footprints.
I'm wondering if a cost-benefit analysis has been done on this question?

Anyhoo...good luck on the new system.

Richard Naylor