FORT WORTH, Texas -- Tarrant County, Texas has adopted a system for integrated public records management. The system expands Internet access to Tarrant County records and provides a platform for e-commerce, which includes the electronic recording of titles and other land records.

One of Texas' largest counties, Tarrant County is home to 1.35 million people. About 470,000 public documents are recorded with the county each year.

The public records system from Hart Intercivic Anthem is a modular system that captures a document from initial imaging and recording through indexing, verification, archiving, and search and retrieval. The system replaces Tarrant County's 30-year-old mainframe system, which provided limited Internet functionality and was difficult to update and maintain. For example, the mainframe system provided Internet access to an index of county records but did not allow users to access document images. The new system provides access to both indexes and images over the Internet. In addition, the system positions Tarrant County to take advantage of e-commerce opportunities by allowing members of the public to purchase and pay for documents over the Internet.

In the first phase of implementation, Tarrant County converted its land records to Anthem in December 2003. Marriage licenses, birth and death certificates, military discharges and other vital records are being converted to Anthem in January. The company is converting more than 20 million historical records, which will be available online with all newly recorded documents.

Also in January, Tarrant County will become one of the first counties in the state to accept electronically recorded documents. "E-recording is our goal," said Tarrant County Information Technology Manager Herman Downe. "We believe it has the potential to reduce our data entry workload by up to 30 percent while greatly increasing the speed with which we are able to process documents."

E-recording allows title companies and others to electronically record real estate documents from any location. The new system can accept all electronic documents that meet standards established by the Property Records Industry Association.