Ind. suggests updating records facility

V INCENNES, IND. (WTHI) - A southern Indiana county may have a relatively cheap solution to the problem of storing centuries of old records and documents.

Knox County officials are going over a report from the Indiana State Archivist on its records issue.

The county may be able to resolve the issue without breaking the budget.

Knox County is older than the state of Indiana and it has piles of records to prove it. The records have been a source of concern for quite awhile.

"Knox County with the history and being the old territorial capital dates way back and we have a lot of valuable records on storage," said County Commissioner Rowe Sargent.

Most of those documents are in a storage building behind the old jail.

The county had experts look at the facility and at options that included replacing it with a new building or even making an addition to the Knox County Library's McGrady Brockman Building.

"They looked at the Records Library and when they looked at it they determined that it was not that bad of a facility," said Historical Collection Administrator Brian Spangle with the Knox County Library. "Maybe that it just needed some work."

The state archivist is recommending that they add a layer of security plus improve the climate control system.

Those two changes would be a lot less expensive than it would be to build a new structure.

County officials though still want to consider the options before making a final decision.

"I think this is something we're going to take our time with and see what the best option is," said Sargent.

With an option, though, that won't bust the budget it appears updating the old records library is one that will be hard to turn down.

A vacant building near the courthouse has also been offered to the county as another option for storing the records, but officials say they are not very interested in taking another structure off the tax rolls.