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Re: Particle board shelving



I was going to be smart and stay out of this one, but....

Particle board will not necessarilly fall apart quickily.  I use it in my
Records Center and have 20 letter/legal boxes to the 60" shelf, stacked two
high and two deep.  Of course, I have front to back supports in the middle
of each shelf.  Approximately 50,000 cu. ft. of my shelves are 10 years old
and the only failure was one shelf where someone neglected to install the
support.

If off-gassing is a legitimate worry, don't count on the shelves to fail
first.

That said, is off-gassing a real concern?  I am dubious because metal
shelves are a relatively recent innovation.  (Were there metal shelves
before the Woodruff-Green filing system, ca. 1865?)  On this subject,
however, I'll defer to the conservations, such as Michael McColgin

Paul R. Scott
Records Management Officer
Harris County, Texas

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fred Lautzenheiser [SMTP:LAUTZEF@CCF.ORG]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2000 3:15 PM
> To:   ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
> Subject:      Particle board shelving
>
> Don't worry about their being chemically active - they will fall down long
> before the offgassing does anything at all to the papers.  We had
> temporary shelving of particle board upstairs in a temporary space from
> last September to this past January, and some of the shelves were already
> bending in the middle.  Most were very short but were still bending under
> the weight of full boxes!  If this is what happens in 4 or 5 months, with
> very short shelves holding only 5 or so Hollinger boxes, their materials
> will be on the floor very soon after they put them up if they use shelves
> of ordinary length.  This is an incredibly short-sighted substitution and
> an excellent example of false economy.   Re: the chemical problem - maybe
> painting them all around with some kind of inert paint would keep gases
> in???  But that doesn't help if the shelves disintegrate under the weight.
>
> Fred Lautzenheiser
> Cleveland Clinic Foundation
> lautzef@ccf.org
>

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