Digitization services for the physical archive of the Municipality of Vari-Voula-Vouliagmeni

The physical archive of the Municipality of Vari-Voula-Vouliagmeni consists of documents held by its Directorates, covering a chronological range of many years, with documents containing information dating up to the present day. Specifically, the Municipality of Vari-Voula-Vouliagmeni possesses and is obliged to maintain, preserve, and manage the physical archive concerning the Building Directorate, the Financial Directorate, and the Administrative Services Directorate. The archive is further divided, beyond the aforementioned Directorates, into further categories according to the specific departments to which they belong. The spaces used by the above Directorates and Services for the placement, classification, and secure storage of the archive primarily include office spaces and storage areas. The documents are mostly placed in cabinets, on simple shelves and Dexion-type shelving, and are mainly in binder-type folders. There is a clear classification method, facilitating the process of finding and re-filing the physical archive used by the Services. The physical archive is stored in a manner that preserves, as much as possible, potential destruction or loss of documents. However, as mentioned above, the passage of time has caused, and continues to cause, changes in the quality of paper in older documents, leading to various alterations, from natural aging to deterioration. Environmental conditions, such as humidity, can have a clear impact on the papers, and their effect may be pronounced in cases of documents containing more information, such as archives larger than A4 (A0, A1, and A2). One of the possible solutions for protecting the information contained in physical archives is through the process of digitization. The process of archive digitization refers to the conversion of physical documents, and the information and texts they contain, from analog to digital format. Digitized documents can be easily retrieved and processed by the user. Therefore, the subject of this tender is the digital organization of the Directorate of Building, the Directorate of Administrative Services, and the Directorate of Financial Services of the Municipality, through the digitization of part of their physical archive and the provision of a document storage system for the management of their digitized archive.