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Re: Double Depth Shelving Query



Tom Wildenberg wrote:

The institution that I just started working for
has shelving that is two
boxes deep.  I've never seen this before and was
wondering if anyone on the
list could provide guidelines on what, if any,
principles of use apply to
this situation.  I personally do not like the fact
the a large percent of
the collection has been placed on the shelves so
that one box hides another.
Normally I would never use such a set up as it
makes it very difficult to
locate individual boxes, especially when their
original order, as is the
case here, is gets mixed up.

This is pretty common practice for Records Centers (including mine) where
density is more important than convenience.  The first thing you need are
good shelf locations, otherwise you will be pulling a bunch of boxes to find
the one you want.
When I worked for the Federal Records Center in Ft. Worth the practice was
to have a records series with low retrieval requirements in the back and one
with high demand in front.
I was recently in a commercial records center that would have driven Tom
Wood to drink.  They stored their boxes three high and three deep on each
shelf-and all nine boxes were considered to have a single location.  Their
theory was that the boxes with the highest retrieval rates would migrate to
the front and the inactive boxes would move to the back.
Paul R. Scott, Harris County, TX

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