Laurie, Heather - thanks for your responses
Very valid points, but not insurmountable. Before I go on I have to say
that I have no commercial interest in this. Occasionally a clever idea
hits you between the eyes and you think: why isn't everyone doing this,
there must be a catch. I must be missing something. This is one of these
cases and my interest is purely academic.
Some more thoughts:
Fire - you would do exactly what you do with paper. If the fire was to
destroy the plastic, it would certainly destroy the paper. But when
records are wrapped in plastic, you can spray the fire area to your
heart's content without worrying about damaging the paper records!
Weight - You don't put 40% more records in a box, you make the
"standard" box 40% smaller! That way the indexing does not change, there
are still 1000 pages in a box and the weight per box stays the same. In
terms of the shelving, well, you might need slightly stronger shelves,
although I suspect that there should be enough allowances for weight
variations on a shelf.
Costs - Suppose I am IM and I want to offer this as a service. I can
reduce my storage costs by 40% and still charge the same per box. The
savings in storage space will probably pay for the equipment and the
extra labour to do the vacuum packing. Some clients might even be
prepared to pay a premium for the reduced risk service.
I sound like I'm selling the stuff, don't I? :-) Well I don't! I just
think it makes sense, and I'm just curious to understand what prevented
this idea from taking off, if it's been around for 6 years or so.
Regards
George
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Carpenter, Laurie
Sent: 01 September 2005 20:55
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Vacuum packed records - Sensible?
George - some things to consider with the benefit mentioned in your
posting #1 r.e. floor space.
<1) Since IM (and others) charge storage fees by floor space, a
40%
reduction in size = 40% reduction in storage costs.>
While the actual records are compressed into less space, they still
WEIGH the same. So, if you theoretically could pack 40% more in a
container, that container now weighs 40% more. That could create
problems in several areas
1) Shelving units. Can the shelves handle the heavier container?
2) Floor load. Is the floor load capable of handling a 40% increase in
weight?
3) Lifting. Suddenly, the "ability to lift 40 pounds" becomes the
"ability to lift 56 pounds", which goes over the NIOSH max recommended
weight for unassisted lifting.
4) If you are not using a standard box, some vendors charge extra. Many
of their shelving units are designed for the standard archive box. If
your container isn't the standard archive box size, you may either pay a
lot more for the non-standard size or pay the price of the standard box
anyway because they can't file anything else in that empty space.
With these 4 factors above, you may not see an actual 40% decrease in
storage costs.
The photos of the Prague book restoration (a link to the presentation
was on the site George originally sent the link to) were amazing. This
is an interesting technology.
(opinions my own and not those of my employer)
Laurie Carpenter, CRM
Records Manager
Koch Industries, Inc.
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