Other considerations are the nature and retention of the records you need to store. You might be justified in separating the storage of "vital records" and/or "long-term records" (you define "long-term") from the storage of "ordinary business records" (you define those), on the basis that the two categories have differing value and, therefore, differing storage requirements. Records having special access restrictions (for reasons of privacy and/or security) might have additional storage requirements. My agency has chosen to store vital, long-term records in-house, accepting the costs of building and staffing a specialised facility (we're in the design stage now) because of their value and retention requirements. The agency's "ordinary business records" will be stored in a good commercial records center with lots of room for expansion, staffing, etc., all the advantages Glenn pointed out. Best regards, Fred. =============================== Frederic J. Grevin Director, Records and Archives Management The City of New York Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) 59-17 Junction Blvd., 11th floor Flushing, NY 11373-5108 E-mail: [log in to unmask] Phone: (718) 595-4372 Fax: (718) 595-4387 -----Original Message----- From: Toby Allen [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 15:21 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [RM] Using a vendor for box storage Hello and happy Friday to all you Records Management Gurus, I have been a long time lurker on the list and now need to request some advice... We are looking to hand our box storage over to a vendor in order to save some $ and to alleviate the "running out of shelf space" issue. I need to develop a white paper for this to help us with our decision. I would love to hear from you on your experience with using a vendor for long term box storage. What are the Pros? What are the Cons? What are the hidden costs of such a relationship? What are the gotchas? Can you point me to any resources on this issue? Thanks so much for your assistance, Toby Toby Allen Records Management Supervisor Municipality of Anchorage [log in to unmask] 907.343.4849 List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance