On Aug 19, 2012, at 12:00 AM, RECMGMT-L automatic digest system wrote:

> From: "Chesley, Rikki" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: August 18, 2012 4:49:59 PM EDT
> Subject: Re: Grateful Dead Archive not as cool as Town Hall Vaults
> 
> 
> My apologies Hugh for the spelling error, but I maintain you have the best job ever.

Ha Ha, I was only kidding about the name. But building vaults is an easy job to be passionate about.  But I often envy the records manager who owns the collection and has time to explore it. To hold this country's lifeblood in your hands.

> As a child our family vacations were Dad dragging us around from town hall, to church, to town hall all over Upstate New York and Vermont looking for records of long dead relatives.  I thought I would die of the boredom, but I grew up to be a records manager, so I guess something stuck!
> 
> Rikki

I think your Dad made more of an impression than you realized.  Your Dad would have gone crazy knowing that Ancestry.Com can do this all with computers but I bet then the magic would not have been there for you.

Fred gave me information about the State of New York and I spent some time on the web site. There was a great deal of information on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in their current exhibitions and this fire was significant as it totally changed the world of fire protection at that time. Every time you pass a fire exit think that it was all those women in that fire!

My daughter did a paper on that fire in High School and I try to keep that disaster in my mind when I consult with people. 

http://www.archives.nysed.gov/aindex.shtml

Larry and I talked about that fire while serving on the NFPA 232 Technical Committee because the new style of records centers have the potential to be disaster on a smaller scale. The lack of orientation that occurs in large mezzanine shelving systems due to smoke in the stacks and the ability of collapsing rack to drop an entire building are demonstrated again and again.

So many of the concepts in fire protection come from lessons learned in that fire because New York State took a detailed look at the failures there that led to so many horrific deaths. Just perform a search on that fire and you will be flooded with references. Changes in fire corridor widths, requirements for fire doors, changes in building structural systems, even changes in fire retardants in clothing has its roots here.

Fred that is why you need to be on the NFPA 232 Technical Committee along with Larry Medina. What a force you two would be. And Ellen Zimmerman should be on it with NAREMCO. And New Yorkers could again play an important role in fire protection for the records industry.

Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
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