Republican National Committee, Washington, DCs

The GOP has been around for a long time. There’s a lot of history and tradition there, which brings with it a number of historical documents, confidential letters and public records. In short, a lot of paper!

The Republican Party, organized in 1854, originally came together as a coalition of political groups wanting to abolish slavery. The Republican National Committee (RNC) was formed in Washington, D.C., and keeps all the organization’s records. These records documented a number of historical events, including the GOP’s support for women’s right to vote in 1896 and President Theodore Roosevelt’s difficult decision not to seek a third term.

When historians and staff needed to look at the papers that recorded these and other events, members of the RNC became concerned. Many of the records were over 100 years old. Handling them and even exposing them to light could damage the priceless documents. They needed the help of Laserfiche’s Document Management .

“When our staff and authorized historians need to access Republican Party archives, electronic files are an ideal medium,” says Melissa Price, special projects coordinator at the RNC. “Digital archives allow users to conduct searches for specific information and enable us to study our records without handling documents that become increasingly fragile as they age.”

The RNC asked John Montel of General Dynamics Information Technology, a Virginia-based Laserfiche Reseller, to help. Montel set up the system to allow the RNC to scan, store and retrieve all their important documents with Document Imaging.

The first records the RNC scanned electronically and preserved as digital images with Document management Software were from the 1856 convention, at which John Fremont was nominated for the presidency. Just four years later, the records chronicle the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, who went on to lead the Union through the Civil War.

Included in the RNC’s Laserfiche files are the records of each Republican convention and twice-yearly party meetings.

Price says the document archives are currently accessible over the Internet to Republican Party staff members and authorized scholars. Party records and historic documents, protected by security codes, are searchable remotely with Laserfiche’s Document Management Solutions WebLink. WebLink makes documents available on the Web without HTML coding.

Price says she is honored to be involved in their preservation at the Party headquarters, noting that they will be precious assets to future generations.