R.C. 149.43(B)(6) allows the public office to decide what is “reasonable” when a requester chooses to have a record copied on a medium other than paper or any other medium in which it already exists. Case law offers minimal guidance in making that determination. However, the overarching intent of the Public Records Act—that public offices err in favor of transparency and disclosure³—dictates that the public office do its best to accommodate the requester when it is able to do so. By way of example, where a requester sought an audio recording that could only be reproduced by rerecording on a device placed near a speaker, the Seventh District Court of Appeals ruled that the requester was still entitled to receive copies, even if they were less than perfect⁴

 

Increasingly, electronic media are becoming the format of choice for public records requestors. While a public office is permitted to recoup its actual costs—paper, supplies, and postage—for copying and mailing paper records, case law⁵ suggests that where a requester asks that paper documents be scanned and provided on electronic media (via CD or as an e-mail attachment, for instance), only the actual cost of the medium can be recovered. If the requested records are not already kept electronically, it will be up to the public office to ascertain whether scanning the paper records to electronic media can be reasonably accomplished as an integral part of the office’s normal operations. 

 

What is “reasonable” in that context? Since burdensomeness alone is not an acceptable basis for denying a voluminous public records request,⁶ it is similarly unlikely to be sufficient grounds for declaring scanning of numerous paper records to be unreasonable. Just as the Ohio Supreme Court found it reasonable in Morgan v. Strickland⁷ when voluminous requested records were continually rolled out to the requester over a period of time, extensive scanning can be completed gradually, until the request is satisfied. On the other hand, limitations on the office’s actual capability to duplicate records on the requested medium may well make the request “unreasonable.”⁸ An office that routinely operates with a single sheet, light duty copier/scanner might justifiably find that scanning volumes of paper records causes unreasonable wear and tear on the equipment, or unreasonably interferes with the office’s ability to perform its functions.⁹

 

In furtherance of openness, it behooves the public office that is faced with a duplication request beyond its actual capability to offer the requester the option of having copies made by a private vendor, at the requester’s expense.¹⁰ The benefits of such an arrangement are twofold: the requester gets the copies he or she wants on the desired medium—and perhaps sooner—while the office fulfills its duty under the Public Records Act to provide members of the public with the records to which they are legally entitled.

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