John Mottern asks:  "Does anyone know how much money is saved by using
regular sized paper, files and folders and as opposed legal size paper,
files and folders?"

This question comes up with some regularity and at one time ARMA had Project
ELF (Eliminate Legal Files).

About 15 years ago my calculations showed that legal size paper increased
the information bearing capacity of a piece of paper by about 20% but legal
size paper, folders, filing cabinets, etc. cost on the average of 33% more
than their letter size counterparts.

There is a secondary problem because offices tend to mix legal and letter
size pages together in legal size folders and equipment so that it actually
increases the space required to storage requirements by up to 20%.

The bottom line is that John needs to do his own calculations to determine
his actual costs but there is probably still a premium to be paid for legal
size equipment and a penalty to be paid for lost storage capacity.
Hopefully he will put his findings on the List for future reference.

Paul R. Scott, CA, CRM
Records Management Officer
Harris County, TX

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