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Keeping records a grave business
 Just like the tombs themselves, paper burial records also crumble. QUICKVOTEOTHER NEWSGLOBAL OFFICE
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SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- If you think your memory will be kept alive after you pass away, think again. Many cemeteries are on the verge of losing records showing who lies buried on their property and where graves are located. However, one Australian technology firm is trying to change all that and is coming up with innovative solutions for keeping records -- an essential part of any business, especially in an age conscious of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and corporate responsibility. At Macquarie Park Cemetery they began burying people back in 1922. Since then the managers of the cemetery have recorded the names of nearly 100,000 people. Each of them has a grave or a memorial for their ashes and the location of every burial site is logged. This allows the cemetery to provide information on the legal owner for all the plots. "There is a race against time to get this information recorded and into a computer system," Anne Field, an entrepreneur from Axiom business system, told CNN. Many of the older paper-based records are disintegrating and rotting away, since cemeteries around the world have always relied on physical documents for record keeping. Field believes that it is crucial cemeteries do not lose this valuable data. "It is often hard to find what you are looking for in an archive like this because none of the information is standardized," she explained. But Axiom has developed software that organizes cemetery records on one interactive map. This can be displayed on a computer screen or a hand-held device and helps pinpoint vacant land the cemetery can sell. Rows in the cemetery are all color-coded; green indicates that a space is being used, whereas purple shows a vacant site. This not only represents future revenue for the cemetery, but also space for families who wish to be buried near their loved ones. Axiom's technology has already been adopted by cemeteries across Australia, but the hand-held device, which allows bereaved families to browse though cemetery plans from home, has not been a big hit with Axiom's Australian customers. "I often have the sense we are dragging them kicking and screaming into the 21st Century," Field said. To accelerate business growth, Axiom is turning to a much larger market -- the U.S., because it has far more cemeteries than Australia. Many U.S. cemeteries are large and privately owned, and are the kind of customers Axiom likes to do business with. Five American cemeteries already use the digital maps and 10 buyers are interested in the hand-held technology, which is great news for Field who is trying to bring new life to a centuries-old business. Andrew Brown contributed to this report for CNN. 
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