Little bits of history are scattered all around Kathy Kloos' office.

Wills dating back to 1803, adoption and criminal court records and the documents that created Mercer County and all its cities, boroughs and townships fill cabinets, line shelves and rest in files.

The earliest of the records were kept by hand. The faded elaborate script splays across papers that are now yellowed and brittle. The documents are still in use, and the paper they are written on is deteriorating. Soon, many of the papers will not be legible, and other papers are so badly in need of repair they might easily be lost forever.

That, Mrs. Kloos recognized, would be a terrible blow; whole portions of the county's history would no longer exist.

Mrs. Kloos is Mercer County Clerk of Courts. Since taking office in 1996, she has chipped away at the job of preserving decaying mountains of historically important papers.

"None of the road dockets, none of the adoption records, none of the criminal records have ever been microfilmed," she said. "These are the only copies of these records that exist. Look at these," she said, motioning to file folders full of yellow, faded documents. "These papers hold the very creation of Mercer County."

Many of the records date to the 19th century, Ms. Kloos said, and a very small percentage of the records were microfilmed or preserved. Previous office holders had microfilmed some records, she said, "but there was no rhyme or reason to it." She started first by microfilming the criminal records gathered during her time in office, she said, in order to have a clear starting point.

The Clerk of Courts' office is actually made up of three different offices: The Clerk of Courts, the Register of Wills and the Clerk of Orphan's Court. Among other things, the office is the official records-keeper for the county, issues marriage licenses and is in charge of adoption, guardianship and trustee records.

There are many obstacles to preserving the historic documents. The process can be time consuming and very costly. So, a couple years ago, Ms. Kloos started looking for grant money to help fund the preservation project. Two separate applications were rejected.

This month, the work paid off and the clerk of court's office was awarded a $5,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to record the 17 volumes of road dockets containing 6,441 pages and 53,333 pages of original documents on microfilm.

IMR Digital, a Pennsylvania-based corporation that does work in information management, storage and preservation, will photograph the dockets and papers.

Brian Konick, vice president of western Pennsylvania operations for IMR, said the company would record each page on microfilm. A picture, so to speak, of each page will be taken and put onto long-lasting microfilm.

Two copies of the microfilm will be made, he said. One copy will be sent to state archives, where it will be stored under precise temperature and climate conditions. The second copy will be returned to the county.

Ms. Kloos said their copy would be in a micro fiche format, so the public can view the records on a screen. The total cost for the project is $6,614, or 11 cents a page.

Ms. Kloos said it will be a relief when the records are finally microfilmed. No other copies of the records exist, she said, and if a fire or other accident were to occur in the court house, none of the documents could be replaced.

The historical importance of the papers is not the only reason the documents are being microfilmed. The entire court house is undergoing extensive remodeling, and eventually, the work will move into the clerk of court's office. The dockets and other papers take up so much space that moving them around wouldn't be feasible, Ms. Kloos said.

"Each docket is 12 inches wide, 18è inches long, 2è to 3 inches deep, and very, very heavy," she said. The other papers take up a cabinet that covers an entire corner of the office.

Already the repository of thousands of wills and other documents, with more coming in each day, the Clerk of Courts office is quickly filling up.

The final resting place of the original documents has not yet been decided, Ms. Kloos said. They might have to be destroyed if a final home isn't found after the documents have been microfilmed. The state would get "first dibs," Ms. Kloos said.

Bill Philson, director of the Mercer County Historical Society, said destruction of the documents would be a terrible loss and a dangerous step.

"(For historians) having the original documents available is intrinsically valued," he said. "And what if something happens to the microfilm, such as if the negative is overexposed or light leaks across it? Only one page might be lost that way, but what if you need that one page?"

Philson said the society was interested in perhaps housing the documents after they are microfilmed. The historical society is working with the clerk of courts' office to preserve the wills and testaments. After the wills are microfilmed, which the office does in-house, they will be turned over to the society for preservation. Philson said the documents are repaired, hydrated if necessary, and stored in acid-free materials in a climate-controlled environment.

He said that the problem of preserving historical documents is not unique to Mercer County.

"Many counties in Pennsylvania and Ohio simply do not have the resources to preserve and house the documents," he said.