Dr. Susan Finazzo isn’t taking any chances with losing Georgia Perimeter College’s “institutional memory.” So, she and her staff in the Office of Institutional Effectiveness have immersed themselves in the task of digging up dusty, at times, decades-old documents and re-filing them—21st century style.

The documents are being scanned electronically and then stored digitally. “The ultimate goal in digitizing our records is to preserve our documentation and to create a searchable archive,” Finazzo says.

The department is deeply committed to the project, with Finazzo assigning student assistant Beement Belecheu the exclusive job of scanning the hundreds upon hundreds of documents needing to be digitized. It’s a tedious process, but one that Janice Byrd, information services coordinator, says has yielded some pretty interesting facts.

There are numerous news releases capturing key events in the early days of GPC, which originally was named DeKalb College and governed by the DeKalb County School System. Some of the papers highlight information related to the college’s acquisition of land and the school’s founding mission.

Then there’s the release dated May 1, 1972, when GPC was called DeKalb Community College. It reports on the testimony of college president Dr. James Hinson Jr. that year before the U.S. Senate. Hinson spoke to members of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, which according to the release, represented 300,000 veterans enrolled in American community and junior colleges in the early ’70s. Hinson’s testimony centered on the fact that a relatively few number of Vietnam veterans were taking advantage of G.I. Bill benefits and how to reverse this issue.

“I’m reading all these news releases and it’s just interesting to see how the college blossomed,” Byrd says.

Georgia Senator Herman Talmadge introduced Hinson at the hearing, while also applauding “the college as the initiator of the open door admission policy in Georgia” and recognizing the school as “a national leader in quality education.”

It’s precisely this type of information that Finazzo wants to keep electronically accessible to the GPC community. For now, all scanned data is being stored on the Office of Institutional Effectiveness server.

“Institutional memory is too important to rest only in the memories of employees,” she says.

“We have all seen instances in which someone leaves the college, and all their knowledge leaves with them. This project has added urgency this year as we celebrate 50 years of serving our community and as we begin a new chapter through consolidation.”

Even so, Finazzo and her team admit that unearthing and transferring five decades worth of documents may take a while.

“It’s definitely going to be a long-term project,” Byrd says.