All Case Studies, Government
September 4, 2026

Glen Innes Severn Council: Preserving history while transforming access to critical records

The background

Glen Innes Severn Council serves the communities of Glen Innes, Deepwater, Emmaville, Glencoe and Red Range in New South Wales New England region. As the custodian of the area’s historical and administrative records, the Council manages information that supports governance, statutory compliance and community services while preserving the region’s rich heritage.

As its records collection continued to grow, the Council recognised the need to modernise access to information while protecting valuable historical records for future generations.

The challenge

Over many years, Glen Innes Severn Council had accumulated a significant collection of paper records, including development files, photographs, maps and other important council documents. While these records remained essential to daily operations, managing them in paper format created several operational challenges.

Accessing archived development files required staff to search through approximately 8,000 paper files stored in basement archive boxes. Retrieving information often involved travelling to multiple storage locations, manually locating files, scanning required documents and returning them to storage. The process was time-consuming, labour-intensive and increased the risk of filing errors.

The Council also sought to:

Improve access to historical records.
Protect valuable information from loss or deterioration.
Reduce physical storage requirements.
Strengthen compliance and information security.
Support long-term digital transformation and sustainability initiatives.

Following a successful tender process, Grace Information Management was selected to deliver the Council’s large-scale digitisation project.

The solution

Grace partnered with Glen Innes Severn Council to digitise its historical records, providing a secure, end-to-end digitisation solution.

The project included:

Secure collection and transportation of records.
Digitisation of more than 1,000,000 images.
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) processing to create searchable records.
Indexing to support efficient retrieval.
Secure destruction of physical records where authorised.
Ongoing project communication and support throughout delivery.

Having previously worked successfully with the Council on earlier digitisation projects, Grace already understood the Council’s records management requirements and was able to deliver another high-quality outcome with minimal disruption.

The results

Digitising the Council’s archived development files has transformed how staff access historical information.

Instead of manually searching through thousands of paper files stored in basement archives, staff can now retrieve the information they need directly from their computers, significantly reducing the time and effort required to locate records.

The project has delivered:

Faster access to archived development records.
Reduced manual handling and retrieval time.
Elimination of repeated scanning and refiling processes.
Reduced risk of filing errors.
Improved access to historical information across the organisation.
A secure digital archive supporting future records management initiatives.

Throughout the project, Grace worked closely with Glen Innes Severn Council to ensure the digitisation program progressed smoothly.

The Council highlighted Grace’s responsive communication, timely support and consistently high scan quality, noting that the finished digital records exceeded expectations and that the project was delivered to a very high standard.

“Prior to the digitisation of Council’s archived development files, staff were required to sort through stacked boxes of 8,000 paper files in a basement to find the information they needed. Staff time and effort has been considerably reduced with having these old files available from their computers. The process is now so simple. Glen Innes Severn Council are very impressed with the results and the quality of work Grace undertook on our behalf.”

Jeff Carroll, Records Supervisor, Corporate and Community Services, Glen Innes Severn Council

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