A Trip to Amherst, Massachusetts

Today I traveled to UMass Amherst to speak at the annual school of the Massachusetts Collectors and Treasurers Association. My class is called "The Collector and the Register of Deeds." The students in this year's class were particularly attentive given our early morning start time. I gave a PowerPoint presentation that showed how the registry's computers work now and how the electronic recording system will work. In my opinion, local tax collectors are prime candidates for electronic recording. They will be able to use Level 3 electronic recording which is a more sophisticated method than I've described in earlier blog entries (that's Level 2). Level 3 electronic recording means there's no paper document involved. Instead, the electronic recording system can be "mapped" to whatever software the tax collector's office uses to generate documents like tax takings. Using their own software, tax collectors will generate documents electronically and transmit them to the registry via the electronic recording system. At some point, paper copies may be produced, but it's not necessary.