Storage space, and the question of how much to provide, is often a source of contention in the planning of new work environments.
There’s probably a few reasons why it’s such a thorny subject. One is that although we should, in theory, be able to manage with far less physical storage space than in previous years (given that most documents are now disseminated in electronic form, and the provision of electronic storage that can be accessed off-site is pretty much ubiquitous at HEIs) the notion of the paperless office is still far from becoming a reality.
Many people find it easier to read documents in hard copy than on-screen, and so print out copies of anything that requires more than a cursory glance through. For documents that one might need read on more than one occasion, having to repeatedly print them out seems to be at odds with the drive to use less paper.
Elsbach, K. D. (2003) Relating physical environment to self-categorizations: Identity threat and affirmation in a non-territorial office space. Administrative Science Quarterly 48, 622-654
Sellen & Harper (2003), The myth of the paperless office - MIT Press
And although academics might rely on books less and less, they still play an important role. In addition to needing at least a few books close to hand for reference purposes or for lending out to students (particularly for more niche subjects), along with other stuff that we display in our workspace, books also help define our identity at work – the titles on our shelves communicate to colleagues what subjects we have an interest in, and are often a trigger for useful conversations about research.
What’s more, for some of us the hoarding instinct is difficult to shake – there’s comfort in stuff, and further, it’s hard to find the time to sort through and throw away anything that’s no longer needed.
That said, with the provision of electronic storage being massively cheaper than physical storage, there’s increasing pressure to reduce the number of bookcases and filing cabinets in our workspace.
The solution?
A storage audit doesn’t actually solve the issue, but it can provide useful data to help inform decisions about the storage provision.In the planning of the Sir Frank Gibb extension for the department of Civil and Building Engineering at Loughborough University, the in-house team audited the provision and usage of existing storage and estimated future requirements for all researchers and academics. This turned out to be a really simple but valuable exercise to carry out.
More about the storage audit at Loughborough
The storage audit for Civil and Building Engineering entailed one of the department’s junior researchers spending a day wandering around the existing office accommodation, measuring how many linear metres of storage space each researcher and academic had in their office accommodation and how much of this they were using (over-spill, e.g. piles of papers stored on the floor, was also included).
In order to gauge how much office-based storage provision could potentially be reduced, occupants were also asked to estimate what percentage of material currently stored in their office could be: archived off-site (so that it was accessible within a week); archived on-site (accessible within a day); thrown away.
And for anyone with a particular interest in storage, the results of the audit are included to the right. Based on these, in the new office accommodation PhD students are provided with 1m of hanging filing, research staff get 3m of hanging filing and 1m of open shelving (well, in truth this is the space on top of their filing cabinets, but it works as open shelving) and academic staff get 4m of hanging filing, 6m of cupboard space, and 6m of open shelving in their office – plus 3m of hanging filing outside their office. User feedback indicates that this is about right – and to date there have been no storage-related tantrums…