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Re: Off-site storage - NE Ohio



My experience with off-site storage (that is, materials stored
in other campus locations) has yielded the following:

1)  Be sure to clearly state your time turnaround for users.  For
example, "24 hour retrieval" means you'll have it the next day.
If it is 4:00 on a Friday afternoon, will you have the materials on
Monday morning...or if you have Saturday hours, will you have them
then.

2)  Be prepared to do some research for users.  If your user is from
out of town and only in Cleveland that day, 24 or whatever time re-
trieval is not going to do them much good.

3)  It may be necesary to "split" collections between the little-used
portions and the heavily-used portions, in order to retain the heavily
used portions onsite.   That may call for reboxing collections, shifting,
or even creation of new collections (say the "a" group and the "b" group).

4)  Consider placing in offsite storage those materials that you have
microfilm for.  That saves wear-and-tear on the records that must be
kept yet makes the information onsite and available.

5)  Are you going to pass along 'retrieval' fees to users for whom materials
are offsite?   For example, if the records storage company charges $5.00
per box for retrieval and delivery, does the user pay that?   Also think about
how you are going to get the materials BACK to the storage site.   Does the
storage facility have holidays that differ from yours?   For example, the State
of Florida observes November 11 or Armistice Day as a state holiday, but
normal businesses do not.   However, many businesses close for Columbus
Day (around Oct. 4) but the university does not.   It is inherently strange
that
we are occasionally working normal hours when banks, post offices, etc. are
closed.

These are just some off-the-cuff comments that I share for thinking purposes
for any archives that is considering off-site storage.

Dean

Dean DeBolt
University Librarian
Special Collections and West Florida Archives
John C. Pace Library
University of West Florida
11000 University Parkway
Pensacola, FL  32514-5750
Tele:  850-474-2213;   Fax:  850-474-3338

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