The Archives and Records Center is dedicated to preserving the records that tell the story of Westchester County.  Three units within the center manage all inactive and archival county records: the Records Center, the Archives, and the Micrographics/Scanning Area. 

Included in the more than 60,000 governmental records from 1680 to the present are: deeds, atlases, naturalization records, wills, election records, financial recordings, building plans, estate inventories, court documents, correspondence and minutes of all county boards and agencies—in all over 6,000 cubic feet of documents and over 75,000 maps alone. 

The library collection of the Westchester County Historical Society (WCHS) is conveniently stored and accessible in the Records and Archives Center.  This complementary collection boasts over 100,000 manuscripts, photographs, maps, books, diaries, periodicals, newspapers, and pamphlets.  Particularly noteworthy is the Otto Hufeland Collection, the largest collection of Westchester history ever privately assembled. 

All collections are conserved by trained archivists and dedicated volunteers who arrange and describe collections for storage in environmentally controlled vaults and prepare finding aids to assist in their retrieval.  The staff is also responsible for scanning and reproducing valuable documents to be made available to the public. 

The records of the Westchester County government are administered under a formal Records and Archives Management program.  The program began in 1973 as a division of the Office of the County Clerk and since 1999 has been a function of the Department of Information Technology, part of the Office of the County Executive.  The 1973 purchase of a records center in Elmsford to house inactive records awaiting destruction was followed in 1985 by the construction on-site of an archives to care for government records of enduring value.  The Records Management and Archives programs were officially established in 1988 by Chapter 631 of the Laws of Westchester County to assist County Government officials store, retrieve, preserve and dispose of records in accordance with Federal, State and local laws, in an efficient cost-effective manner.  The two functions were placed under a single Records Manager and Archivist in 1992, whose title became Director of Knowledge Management and Archives in 1999.  The Director, Patricia Dohrenwend, reports to the County’s Chief Information Officer who serves as the Records Management Officer for Westchester.

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The County Archives maintains approximately 6,000 cubic feet of records, dating from 1680 to the present.  The Archives is also the official repository of publications produced by the County Government.  Records are stored according to professional archival standards in a temperature and humidity-controlled environment in acid-free boxes and folders.

A professional staff includes three trained archivists, as well as a micrographics/scanning supervisor and several support staff.  Approximately 24 volunteers/student interns, working under the direction of a volunteer coordinator, assist in processing collections and in serving the public in the Reading Room.  The Archives staff facilitates workshops to instruct teachers and librarians in the use of government documents in the classroom and for public information, and has published a 75-page Guide to the Collections, as well as a recent pamphlet on doing genealogical research. During 2003, 612 patrons used the Reading Room and 1,859 mail, e-mail or telephone requests for information were completed; there were 1,154 other visitors to the Archives.

A conservation and microfilming program of the Archives' maps, photographs, administrative and court records has been in effect since 1990.  One of the most important projects in the Archives is the scanning of all new maps to meet demands for both preservation and access.  In addition, the Scanning Unit assists in archiving all land records filed in the County Clerk’s Office, scans important historical documents for  Finance and Human Resources and handles discrete one-time preservation projects, such as the imaging of all the personnel cards.  In 2003, 585,685 high-speed scans were produced, 13,447 images were produced by the state-of-the-art Zeutschel planetary scanner and 1,592 Ozalid copies of maps were made.

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The Records Center currently houses approximately 108,000 cubic feet of government records that are stored in two warehouses – one that is adjacent to the Archives; the other, at 375 Executive Boulevard, Elmsford.  These inactive records have met the following two criteria:  (1) they are consulted once a month or less, and (2) although more than 6 years old, they have not yet reached their destruction date as stipulated by the current New York State Records Retention and Disposition Schedule.  The program employs 5 full-time staffers, who schedule records for transfer, deliver them upon departmental request, and interfile those records returned for safekeeping.

A member of the public who seeks a particular record must apply to the department of that record’s origination – not to the Records Center, as the Records Center is not open to the public. 

Each department head is required by County law to appoint at least one Records Coordinator to act as liaison between the Records Management program and the department.  The Records Management program provides direction for Records Coordinators in training meetings held throughout the year and through an Information and Training Manual. 

In addition, the Records Center provides confidential destruction of records that have reached the end of their retention periods  Each year since 1996, the Records Center has effected a net decline in new records stored.

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