The slashdot crowd of course is going to lambast this decision. But if you take time to think about it rather than reply with a knee-jerk reaction, it really isn't that unreasonable.
Really? Let's break it down:
What is required to host thousands of emails online?
- A web server. Presumably they have one of these, but is it just a simple website at some hosting company and not very easy to configure or mass-upload to, and perhaps with a limited storage quota? Is it their same server they had in the late 90's that might choke on 24,000 files in one directory?
Sort the files by date, file type, &c. instead of one folder. Even the most basic web servers can list a thousand rows of text in a single web page.
- How do you convert the emails to individual files which can be hosted? Convert to PDF perhaps? File -> Save As? Either way, it is going to be very labor intensive. Perhaps the email system is old enough that it is even more difficult and time consuming?
Run a script to convert to PDF or postscript. Less labor-intensive than having somebody man the printers
- How long do you have to store the online files? Every day they store the files on the server costs them extra $. And every person who downloads the files costs them extra $.
Paper costs money to store. It also costs less to send 24k files over the internet than to print them out. If $ is an issue, charge the person $5 to access the archive.
- What type of technical knowledge is required to put all of the pieces together? To a slashdotter it might seem trivial, but a town of 30,000 reachable only by water and air is not the type of place who will employ public servants with the technical expertise of a slashdotter. Their IT staff might consist of a guy who knows how to replace a monitor and reformat Windows XP. They may outsource all of the rest of their IT functions at an hourly cost to the state. All of these email requests are probably going to some poor secretary who has a hard time opening her own email.
Hire a contractor. They're a government, they know how to get hold of contractors. The amount of time they pay the contractor for will still cost less than having somebody man the printers for each press agency.
- Who should have access? IANAL, but this is a foia request so I presume anybody in America, but is Alaska required to make government documents readily available to the governments of North Korea and Iran? If not, who is going to setup the security to prevent unauthorized access?
Remember, this is a foia request which Alaska has to respond to, but they have no incentive to make it easy at their own taxpayer's expense. It is far cheaper and easier for a small town government office to tell people to come and get the information than it is for them to make it easily accessible over the internet.
The same people who have access to federal documents released under the FOIA
