Hernando County History and Culture

Jim Powell, Jr.

Ancient Records Coordinator and Webmaster

Alachua County Clerk's Office

Gainesville, FL

Assistant State Coordinator and Vie President of the FLGenWeb Project, Inc.  

This photo was taken May 19, 2007 at the Document Preservation Seminar held at the Citrus Historic Courthouse Museum, 2nd Floor Courtroom, Inverness , FL.  Jim Powell, Jr was the guest speaker for this program.  The seminar was a joint venture of the now defunct Hernando County Historical Advisory Commission, the Hernando Preservation Foundation and the Citrus County Historical Society.

Mr. Powell spoke about the need for our public documents to be digitized as time and the elements are not kind to the paper they are printed on.  He demonstrated how it can be acheived using modern technology and a little ingenuity with little or no cash outlay.

Mr. Powell narrated a slide show detailing the digitization of the holdings of the Ancient Records of Aachua County.  Many interesting facts were brought to light.  He demonstrated how thru this process all documents associated with one person can be accessible via the "click of a mouse".  The Alachua County Clerk,  J. K. "Buddy" Irby hired Mr. Powell to coordinate and supervise this project and the Alachua County Clerk's Website after Mr. Powell demonstrated his preservation prowess as a volunteer.

The Alachua County Project utilized volunteers from around the world to complete the indexing and transcription of the  "Ancient Records" using an online transcription toolset created by Jim Powell. The project is into its eighth year and nears completion through this unique marriage of government records and volunteerism.

For more information about the Program contact:  Jim Powell, Jr.  please include Document Digitilization Seminars as the subject line.