SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR STORING AND RETRIEVING MATCHED PAPER DOCUMENTS AND ELECTRONIC IMAGES

Newly received or generated paper documents of different content classifications are simply scanned under the control of a digital processor at random in date/time order to produce corresponding electronic images. Each paper document and its electronic image are automatically assigned a unique date/time identifier. No matter how the paper documents are classified, they simply are stacked in sequential folders, which in turn are stacked in sequential boxes. The folders and boxes are marked with the ranges of the date/time identifiers that have been assigned. The digital processor creates records that specify the classifications and the date/time identifiers of the documents. The digital processor then: can provide sets of electronic images that belong to selected content classifications for working purposes, and can indicate the locations of the paper documents in the folders and boxes whenever the need arises.