A custodian receiving an inspection request must respond in the same medium in which the custodian received the request, be it electronic or paper. The custodian may provide an additional response to the same request in any other medium the custodian deems appropriate.

Subject to the Act’s specific requirements discussed below, a custodian must provide proper and reasonable opportunities to inspect public records. This does not mean that a request to inspect must take precedence over all other business of the public body. Rather, the duty to provide reasonable opportunities to inspect permits a records custodian to take into account the public body’s office hours, available space, available personnel, need to safeguard records and other legitimate concerns. Accordingly, the custodian may impose reasonable conditions on access, including appropriate times when, and places where, records may be inspected and copied. Generally, the obligation to provide reasonable access to public records should not require an office to disrupt its normal operations or remain open beyond its normal hours of operations.

Example 41:
A city treasurer’s office posts its accounts and closes its books at the end of each month. A request to inspect the account ledgers for the city on the last business day of the month would interfere with the ability of the office to close the accounts. In such a case, it would be reasonable to ask the requester to return the next day to inspect the ledgers.

Example 42:
A person wishes to inspect all the contracts entered into by a school district for the past five years. To give the person free access to all the filing cabinets containing such documents would both disrupt the normal operations of the school district administrator’s office and disturb the filing system. Therefore, it would be reasonable to ask the person to sit in a part of the office out of the main traffic flow and have staff members bring her the records in batches at reasonable intervals.

The right to inspect public records includes the right to make copies of public records. The Act provides that a records custodian must provide reasonable facilities to make or furnish copies during usual business hours.

Ordinarily, the facilities available for copying are those used by the office in the normal course of business. Reasonable use of such facilities does not require the interruption of the regular functions of the office.

Example 43:
A person, having inspected several records pertaining to hearings conducted by a state licensing board, has requested copies of the final orders issued by the board. The copies may be made on the agency’s copying machine but the requester may be asked to wait a reasonable amount of time until personnel are available to make the copies.

Commentary
A public agency also may impose reasonable requirements to protect public documents, such as requiring the presence of an employee when sensitive documents are inspected, provided the requirements are reasonable and are not intended to discourage inspection or as harassment.

A records custodian is required to post a notice in  a conspicuous location in  the  administrative office of the public body and on the public body’s publicly accessible web site, if any. The notice must describe, at a minimum, the right to inspect public records, contact information for the records custodian, the procedures for requesting inspection and copies of the public body’s records and applicable reasonable fees for copying records. The Act makes clear that the notice must be posted on a website only if the public body maintains a publicly accessible website. The Act does not address the posting requirement for public bodies that do not have an administrative office. If a public body does not have an administrative  office, it might comply with the Act by making reasonable efforts to post the required notice in the place where the public body’s records are maintained or in another appropriate location where persons who are interested in making a request to inspect the public body’s records are likely to see the notice.

 Example 44:
The Do Re Mi Mutual Domestic Water Users Association is a small organization with only 30 members. The Association has no office. Requests to inspect the Association’s records generally are referred to the secretary of the Association’s board of directors, who is also the records  custodian. The secretary maintains the Association’s records at his home. Under these circumstances, it would be appropriate to post the notice required by Section 14-2-7(E) of the Act in a conspicuous location at the secretary’s home, such as on or near the front door. 

Example 45:
The records custodian for a local school district posts a notice describing the right to inspect public records and applicable procedures for inspection in the district’s administrative office. The notice is printed in small type on a 3” by 5” card and thumbtacked to the wall behind the receptionist’s desk. This notice is not sufficient for purposes of the Act. While the location of the notice might qualify as conspicuous, the size of the  type used for the notice renders it inconsistent with the clear intent of the Act that the notice be prominent and readily observable by interested members of the public. 

Commentary
A model notice describing the rights, duties and procedures pertaining to the inspection of public records as required by Section 14-2-7(E) is contained in Appendix III.