The Record Center began operation in February of 1997 and has grown with the consolidation of the county's records. The goal of the Record Center is to organize the county's records into a comprehensive document management, filing and retrieval system. Since the origination of the Records Center a tremendous amount of progress towards providing the public access to these and other records has been made.

One of the first tasks was to transfer all of the records from Nueces County Departments to the Record Center. High-capacity storage racks and shelving units were installed to hold the large amount of cartons, dockets, index/minute books, as well as other county specially bound volumes and records. As part of this tasking, the Record Center personnel moved all County Clerk, District Clerk, Courts of Law, Jail, and records from the 5th and 6th floors of the County Courthouse to the Record Center. The effort required an enormous amount of physical labor, and cataloguing expertise by the Records Center personnel. This task was finally completed in early January 2000.

Through our ongoing efforts, and in order to provide better access to the Public, the Record Center has created a public area for reviewing  county documents. This will enable the public to obtain ready access to county records (with the exception of active court cases and current records which must continue to reside at the courthouse for legal reasons).

The installation of a Wireless system has connected the Record Center to the Nueces County Local Area Network (LAN). The Record Center was one of the first members of the Data Processing Departments Wireless-LAN Project. In the future the system will allow the documents to be scanned and sent directly to the requesting department. The implementation of a Record Management System will improve the management of documents by allowing county offices to automatically locate documents by using e-mail to request records.

The Records Center in partnership with Nueces County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center have developed special job activities which employ handicapped individuals. Job tasks were developed around the overall work effort to utilize work units of two to four individuals working as a team to accomplish a specific task. Examples are; the shredding of paper, paper separation by type, removal of binders, paper clips and staples etc. Additional tasks, such as filing, housekeeping, copying/faxing, telephone coverage and re-boxing files are occasionally assigned to these work teams.  Several of the areas that are experiencing backlogs have been brought under control through the efforts of these very special employees.

This project has turned out to be a success for the county, as well as the mental health and mental retardation community. Nueces County has benefited by having the work accomplished, which resolved staff needs. Our special employees have benefited by earning wages and gaining self esteem as productive members of our society. It was and continues to be a rewarding situation for all involved. The Records Center will continue to use this very beneficial and advantageous program in the future.