LowellDeeds

The ACS Computer Users Group met today in Worcester.  This group consists of the registries that use the ACS Computer System, representatives from the Secretary of State's Office, and key personnel from ACS.  We discussed a range of topics which I'll write about in the coming days but for now, two things warrant mention.  The new search program that disregards spaces and punctuation (which will be a big benefit to registry users) will become active on August 1, both in the registries and on the Internet.  The other "new thing" is the ability to search on the Internet by document type, town, and date range.  This will allow Internet users, for example, to retrieve all deeds recorded in Lowell during June 2004 or all mortgages for Tewksbury for March 2003.  You can already do this at the registry, but because such searches tend to be large and consume a lot of computer power, they weren't allowed over the Internet.  Now they will be (with a limit of 1000 records per search).  We'll let you know when this feature becomes active.  The only bad news to emerge from today's meeting was that John Harvell, the man who has overseen the installation of the ACS computer system in Massachusetts from the beginning up until now has left ACS.  Back in June 2002, this registry and Harvell's ACS team were given the challenge of doing the first ACS installation in Massachusetts in an extremely short period of time.  We did it, but without John Harvell's intelligence, experience, determination and judgment, it never would have happened and we would not now be able to offer our users the quality of service that we provide.  Everyone here in Lowell will miss John and we all wish him well in his future endeavors.