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Re: Remote Storage



Jane wrote:
<<Our department is responsible for both the records of a College's
institutional history and donated manuscript collections, but not rare
books.  There is discussion of removing some material to "remote storage."
Could other institutions who have utilized remote storage for these kinds
of material please give a little advise on how the decision was made as to
what should be in the remote location, how detailed a finding aid there had
to be to what was stored there, how frequently the materials had to be
accessed and by whom, what kind of facilities  (e.g., xerox machine)  there
were in the remote area, etc.  Would it be most appropriate to store the
unprocessed College material there?   Given the time it takes to process
some material, I am afraid that the latter arrangement will make that area
sort of a "Death Valley?">>

There are several things that you can do. Here are just a few
1. Would this be a facility operated by the university or a an offsite
records storage vendor.

2. Determine what materials have the lowest usage rate (access rate). Whether
they are processed or not does not matter. Low usage suggests that they be
stored offsite.

3.Description -- Off\site storage vendors utilize barcode tracking technology
to locate and track items they are responsible for. Most require clients to
complete a transmittal form that allows for about 75-100 characters of
description. Each line of description represents one item usually a box.

4. Unprocessed materials - If you store them offsite or remotely then you
should develop a project schedule or plan for determining the materials that
you would like to process first.

5. Cost - Commercial off-site storage vendors charge by the cubic foot. A
standard records storage carton aka bankers box or whatever is not a cubic
foot. Do the math
15x12x10 = 1800 cubic inches (interior some vendors measure the outside
dimensions) 12x12x12 = 1728 cubic inches = 1 cubic foot
1800/1728 = 1.0416 cubic feet.

you can determine the cubic footage of your own boxes.

6. Contact the nearest local ARMA chapter to find out who there uses a
commercial off-site storage vendor and ask about their experiences. The
following link will give you information on chapters near you
http://www.arma.org/chapters/chapters.htm#Northeast

7. Vault storage -- Most commercial off-site storage offer vault storage for
really valuable items, however it is at a higher cost.

There is much much more involved in remoter or commercial off-site storage.
If you have any other questions please feel free to contact me at my office
peter.kurilecz@woodsidesummitgroup.com or 804-744-1247 x23



Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
pakurilecz@aol.com
Richmond, Virginia

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