Framingham On-Line Archive Technical Notes

Organization and Structure
The on-line archive is a collection of electronic documents and scanned paper documents.  The documents are organized into a logical grouping of folders. Each document has additional metadata, called a template, that stores information about the document including the date it was created, who created it, the type of information contained in the document, and an indicator for keeping the document beyond its required date of retention.  The Wikipedia entry for Document Management Systems provides a good description of the design and features of the Town’s On-line Archive.  

All documents in the on-line archive have been assigned the public access template along with a document type.  (See the drop down list for a complete list of document types that includes annual reports, elections, financials, minutes, plans, policies and warrants).

There is also a retention date associated with these documents to correspond to public retention requirements for the particular document type, however, we have also implemented a historical override feature to enable documents such as minutes to be marked for retention beyond the normal retention period.

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