Thank you all for your responses so far - I see that I am not alone.

A couple of explanatory points that may help shed light on this problem:

1) All records traffic always was conducted at the level of individual 
cartons rather than individual files, ever since records storage and 
destruction were outsourced in the mid-1990s.

2) No records destruction ever was supposed to occur prior to receipt of 
authorization from the university.  Cartons to be destroyed would be 
recalled to the university for verification, then returned to the vendor 
to be destroyed.  The 30 missing cartons never were scheduled for 
destruction, so if their destruction occurred it was without any request 
on the part of the university.

3) The original vendor palletized and shrink-wrapped the records to be 
picked up by the new vendor.  Manifests for each pallet were supposed to 
be provided, but in many cases were not.  The recipient vendor only 
could examine the pallets after they were transported back to their own 
facilities.  On multiple occasions, I requested copies of the 
documentation from the original vendor, and was answered with silence.

4) Unfortunately, I cannot use payment as a form of leverage, because 
the original vendor insisted that all permanent withdrawal and carton 
request fees be paid in advance of the move, so they were paid.  Only a 
small bill from occasional traffic that occurred during the move remains.

5) I know which cartons are missing, their contents, the numbers 
assigned to them by the university, and the numbers assigned to them by 
the original vendor.  Some are critical in nature.

6) In the past two years, the original vendor lost three cartons, which 
was discovered because of routine requests for those cartons.  I 
requested an audit of all university records held in their custody, and 
was able to finally convince them to conduct a partial audit from a 
certain point in time onwards, which translated into an audit of about 
1/2 of the university's records held in their custody.  Naturally, they 
assured me that all cartons were present and normal.  The missing 
cartons were not covered by that audit.

7) In addition to the 30 missing cartons, there was one additional 
missing carton.  It was delivered by the original vendor to the 
university on last Friday.  The packing slip that accompanied listed 
three cartons for delivery, including the one that actually was 
delivered.  The other two cartons remain missing.

There's probably more, but that should add some detail to the picture.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ian Janssen
> Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2009 8:57 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Missing Boxes
>
> Recently, this institution made a transition from one records storage 
> vendor to another, with approximately 14,000 cartons of records moved 
> between the two.  Out of that number, 30 remain with the original vendor 
> and were not moved for reasons unknown.  That vendor is searching for 
> cartons, but is beginning to indicate that the boxes were sent to the 
> university, which they most certainly were not; likewise, they never 
> were sent to the recipient vendor.  The vendor's own systems indicate 
> that the cartons were withdrawn but not shipped.
>
> I have tried every trick in the book, so to speak, to obtain these 30 
> cartons from the original vendor, without success to date.  Short of 
> litigation, what options as a departing customer do I have?  Has anybody 
> else experienced a similar situation, and if so, how was it resolved?
>
> If you wish to contact me off-list, please do so at [log in to unmask]  
> Thank you.
>
>   


-- 
Ian Janssen
Director
University Archives and Records Management
University of Delaware
002 Pearson Hall
Newark, DE  19716-0501
Phone: 302-831-2750
Fax: 302-831-6903
Email: [log in to unmask]

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