"In mid-August, when Carolyn Bedingfield requested copies of emails from a public charter school in El Paso County, Colorado, she made sure to ask that any records kept in an electronic format be provided to her in an electronic format, as a 2017 amendment to the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requires.

"Because emails are created and maintained digitally, Bedingfield was surprised and annoyed when, three weeks later, Monument Academy had her pick up a box of paper records — with some of the 600 pages "warped as if wet and then dried" and others still damp and stuck together.

"The searchable PDF that Bedingfield eventually received [following threatened legal action against the school] is required under Senate Bill 17-040, which was meant to stop records custodians from providing requesters with paper copies of emails, spreadsheets and database exports rather than easy-to-analyze electronic files. The 2017 CORA amendment clearly states that public records stored in digital formats must be provided to a requester in a digital format, one that is searchable or sortable if the records are kept that way."

In Kentucky, the open records law states that "Nonexempt public records used for noncommercial purposes shall be available for copying in either standard electronic or standard hard copy format, *as designated by the party requesting the records, where the agency currently maintains the records in electronic format.*"

KRS 61.874(2)(a) https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=23061

In other words, if a requester asks for public records that are maintained in electronic format, like emails, the requester has the right to choose to receive the records in the electronic format or, if he prefers, in hard copy format.

Public agencies in Kentucky are not, however, required to convert records that are maintained in hard copy only to an electronic format to satisfy a records request.