Creating An Indexing System
For Official City Documents

By JOHN GROSS, Finance Director and Village Clerk
Village of Arlington Heights

Among their many responsibilities. City Clerks are responsible for maintaining the official records of the City. However, whether it is their job or not, they are also often regarded as the "Source of All Information", to live up to the latter title, it will greatly help if there is an index to city documents and records so you can find the information that is in the records.

This article discusses some of the concepts to setting up and maintaining a manually maintained indexing system for accessing the information in the officially enacted documents of a city.

Physical Storage

Whether or not you have an index, it is essential to have some kind of filing system for actual documents. The physical storage of official documents such as ordinances and resolutions is straightforward. Official actions should probably be stored in chronological order by date of enactment with some kind of sequential number actually placed on the documents. Several physical files might be created, for example one file for resolutions, another for ordinances, and a third for miscellaneous documents adopted by the Council.

Although there are other ways to physically file these documents, you will always need to be able to find official documents based on a number or chronologically. While people may be able to accept not being able to find something on a particular subject, you will not be able to explain not finding ordinance number 88-012, the 12th ordinance of 1988. So file everything chronologically and have a numbering system that is also chronological.

Records other than officially enacted ordinances, resolutions, or agreements should probably be filed by subject. Whether a matter on zoning for Grupp's office building should be filed under "Grupp" or "Zoning" is a decision that should probably be based on volume of filing materials. If a large number of zoning issues are anticipated, the filing is better under "Grupp," otherwise "Zoning." If miscellaneous subject files are kept, a decision needs to be made as to whether or not to store copies of related council approved official documents in these files (in addition to the original in the chronological files).

A Chronological Index — Basic Requirement

A basic need above that of simply being the repository for official records is to be able to identify official actions. An index in chronological order is all that is needed to do this.

This index is just a highly abbreviated version of the document file itself. In any search for information, you want to avoid reviewing actual documents unless you have to. It is too time consuming and always has the potential for lost or misfiled documents. In addition, if someone else is going to look for something, it's better to have them go through an index than to allow them access to original documents.

A chronological index can be a list on regular typing paper or it can be a card system, with one document per card. A list has the advantage of being easily copied (in its entirety) and of being somewhat easier to use and more difficult to lose. A card system is easier to maintain and update, although a list can be easy to maintain if you use a word processor.

The chronological list or (index cards) should identify the type of document, and include a document number, a date, and a brief description of what the document is. The list or card may also indicate document location if that is not obvious. As with the documents themselves, the list can be divided into document types, with a separate list for each document type.

Enhancements to a Chronological List

An important enhancement to the basic chronological index is to provide a more complete description of the document. Instead of merely providing a minimal description of the document, a more expanded description can be used. This will help minimize the need to eventually look at the actual document itself. For example, a document which is described as "annexes property into the City," might better be described as "annexes the property in the Northwest area bounded by Northshore Boulevard, Lexington Street, the West Mall, and the Lake. Approximately 1,500 acres." Another example would change a zoning matter description from "zoning variation" to "zoning variation giving from R5 to R3 subject to construction in accor-

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dance with plans dated 7/15/89 and planting of dense evergreen shrubbery as a border on east side."

Other enhancements to a basic chronological list include color coding of cards to indicate certain information such as document type, or particularly important subjects such as code changes, annexations, etc., indicating physical location of documents and marking the edge of a stack of cards with a diagonal line to help identify misfiled cards.

The chronological index is a necessary starting point for an indexing system. However, it doesn't help all that much in finding things by subject.

A Subject Index — A Major Step Forward

A subject index is needed to find items by subject. For a manually maintained subject index, an index card system is the best bet. A subject index is always maintained in addition to a chronological index, not instead of a chronological index.

A subject index entry is prepared at the same time as a chronological index entry by asking, "under what subject would I most likely be asked for information in this document". An index card is then prepared, which at the very least, would have that subject at the top of the card as well as the document number on the card. The card would then be filed alphabetically by subject in the subject card file.

Even this minimal subject system will make a substantial improvement in the ability to find information contained in official adopted actions of the council. The question "give me all the annexations," or "give me all the zoning variations in the last two years," becomes easy to answer.

Enhancements to a Subject Index

With a subject card system as described in the previous section, if you looked an item up by subject, all you would get is a document number and you would then have to look that number up in the chronological index or in the actual document file to get more information. This has the disadvantage of requiring multiple steps when searching for something by subject; the advantage is that it takes little time to prepare the subject card.

A significant improvement to the subject card would be to provide a more complete description such as described under an "Enhanced Chronological List".

Another enhancement would provide multiple subject cards, where appropriate for a single document. For example a zoning variation could be filed under the subject "zoning variation" as well as under the name of the project or the developer such as "Grupp's Office Building".

To keep the work of preparation of subject cards to a minimum, the subject description portion of the cards can be a carbon or photocopy of the chronological index card, with a subject name added to the top. A work saving option for multiple subject cards is to minimize the words on the second or third card by simply referencing the original subject card or just putting the document number on the card. These latter procedures are not generally recommended unless time is not available; however if a document's subject is one that frequently comes up and is sufficiently simple to require only a short description, then a better timesaving procedure is to use a single subject card for more than one document. An example of such an index might be one for an "Appropriations, Annual" subject card. Each line of this card would be a fiscal year and the ordinance number. You would have to take the time to go to the subject index and pull the card to index a document in this manner.

An alternative approach to subject cards would be to index only selected subjects. The subject file would then not be a complete index to all documents, but important subjects (that you select) would be indexed.

Indexing Minutes

Discussions or motions of the Council, even when they do not lead to ordinances, resolutions, or other official documents are often of importance in the affairs of a City. It is often valuable to index minutes of the Council by subject in the same manner as you might index an official document. Among other things, this allows the index system to help trace the history of an action.

Indexing Other Documents and Other Boards/Commissions

The City Clerk's office probably maintains files of documents or other information in addition to the records of official council action. Some of these files are directly related to the Clerk's duties (such as elections) and some are maintained to provide the City with a

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repository for information of matters important to the City. These files may provide detail for important events, decisions, projects, duties, etc.

Such files may also be indexed by subject using procedures similar to that for official documents. The subject card should indicate that the information is in a file folder and provide any necessary location information for that file folder.

A subject index can also index actions or minutes of ancillary boards or commissions. Such indexing would probably be done by the city representative who attends such meetings and then transmitted to the clerk in accordance with procedures established by the clerk. An example of the benefits of such an enhancement to a subject index system would be that the subject index could then trace the history of a development project through all steps of the approval process.

Written Procedures

One way to help ensure a quality index' is to have written procedures for index maintenance. The basic procedure can be fairly brief; just a few paragraphs is better than nothing. A more elaborate (and more helpful) procedure would include examples of index preparation. A procedure for a chronological index is not difficult or time consuming to prepare. A procedure for a subject index should probably consist primarily of examples and can be a substantial project. It can however, be done over time as the subject index is actually being prepared and thus may not be that big of a problem.

Written procedures are particularly beneficial if multiple people are involved in maintaining an index or if there is a change in who prepares the index. It is also beneficial in terms of maintenance of consistency in subject indexing, something that is very important to being able to find the information that is being looked for in a subject index.

Automated Index

Automated systems are available to index records. It is also not particularly difficult for an in-house data processing shop to develop a system. The most time consuming part of the task is developing the examples and associated procedures that the Clerk uses to enter subject oriented information to the system. Written procedures, while important for a manual system, are essential to the success of an automated system.

An automated indexing system that utilizes a microcomputer and provides both chronological and subject oriented indexing has been developed for the Village of Arlington Heights and is available without cost by contacting the author of this article.

Conclusion

An index represents a more professional approach to operation of the Clerk's office, but it may seem that the time hardly exists to maintain an index. Nonetheless, there are substantial benefits to indexing including less time looking for information either on the part of the Clerk or on the part of city staff who must look for information in official records or actions of the council. The time saved in searching for information as well as the cost of not being able to find certain information must be balanced against the cost of maintaining an index. •

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