There was a big case a few years ago of a huge multi national conglomerate with a small specialist outpost in deepest England that had some very sad and serious losses when their archives and documentation went up in flames during a fire at a dedicated storage depot. Unbeknown to this company when they took up this offer of ‘dedicated’ archive and document storage, the owners and operators were not actually insured to cover this problem as they were not actually in a fire safe area. Many local families have connections with this company, going back to the very beginnings of their existence – the work there was fairly confidential and discrete. Testing of all sorts was a main feature of their operation so much record keeping was a natural allied activity. When testing of recipes and reactions to any changes to the components were coming on stream then teams of testers would be briefed and put through their paces. Very reliable colleagues with huge experience and trustworthy accuracy. Then the recorders of all the data would get their side of the operation completed and off went the records to be lovingly cared for. Or not. The loss was so great, no one could estimate the damage.
The moral of this sorry tale is to ensure that whenever documentary archives of any sort, or microfiche perhaps need to be stored forever, then the storage facilities have to be so top notch they could take on a nuclear power station for double and treble checks. This is all so very different to one place I worked where the storage system was brand new but involved a series of racks that had a large turning wheel at the ‘human end’ for moving the shelved racking either left or right to allow access to the next one along. Very clever for its time but not sophisticated when you think of the ease with which fire could penetrate – and again, whoof up they would all go. There are training courses to cover every type of business orientated storage and archiving. It is a very serious business and those that need to have their records checked and verified often in a working year will atest to the worth they put on the checking and double checking that all failsafe systems are in tip top working condition.
