I have field books dating back to 1930's and rarely need to use them.?ÿ Keeping and managing them in archive has little value.?ÿ Most of our newer stuff from the 1990's (yes) was collected digitally and fb's were not used in the early 2000's going forward - there were some sketches that got filed.
What to you do with your old field books?
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Scanned em, pitched em.?ÿ
I still have all of mine, but after almost 30 years in business I'm only on No. 33, so storage space isn't much of a problem.
We keep them onsite for a period of time and then they go to offsite storage for the remainder of their life. Every job gets a new field book so we go through a good amount. The last one I checked out for a new project was #41021.
Any idea what it would cost to scan each book? ?ÿAnd, Will a book scanner get the stuff in the crease? ?ÿ
Will a book scanner get the stuff in the crease? ?ÿ
I've scanned lots of hard bound field books on the office scanner. The books fold out flat. All the stuff in the crease gets scanned, no problem.?ÿ?ÿ
Any idea what it would cost to scan each book? ?ÿAnd, Will a book scanner get the stuff in the crease? ?ÿ
All I can say about the cost is that's it's expensive, depends on how much you have of course. In my case there were a few choices, rent or build some off-site storage, throw out files or scan and pitch. I suppose we could have piled boxes all around the office, but the garage was full, the filing room was full, the times two was full, the soon to be torn down shed was full. It was a choice that had to be made. Now each job folder is scanned and a very slim folder is put in the files after cleaning out duplicates and not necessary junk that gets in them.?ÿ
We scan hardbound and loose leaf books, one of my boundary jobs has 25 field books between 200-250 pages each. It's important to separate before scanning, deeds in one section, drawings in another, books in a different file, ect.?ÿ
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@mightymoe That boggles my mind. How can any boundary job require 5000 pages of field book notes?
I use pre-printed forms on card stock which I fold in half. I stopped using field books several years ago. They are easy to scan and I put the originals in the project file.
I use a larger level book which is the perfect size to store the folded letter size sheets while in my vest and the book provides a hard surface to write on.
@mightymoe That boggles my mind. How can any boundary job require 5000 pages of field book notes?
It's a big boundary.
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