I love using jigs whenever possible, especially when it comes to measuring things for housings. So please meet the “Box-O-Matic” measuring jig, which I created from the bottom half of a 20 x 16 archival box and colored pencils. I invented the Box-O-Matic jig to quickly identify which oversized books could be immediately rehoused in off-the-shelf archival flat boxes. The jig can also identify which books could get a custom housing and not exceed the size restrictions for being relocated to our high-density off-site storage facility.
Each of the rectangles drawn in different colors represents the inner dimensions of one of the many “standard” sizes of flat archival storage boxes. Most of these box sizes are available from most every archival supplier vendor (with a few exceptions). I included some very similar sizes (such as 18 1/2 x 14 1/2 vs 18 x 14) because not every size was available in the smaller 1 1/2 depth.
- 20 1/2 x 16 1/2
- 19 1/2 x 13 1/2
- 18 1/2 x 14 1/2
- 18 x 14
- 18 x 13
- 16 1/2 x 12 1/2
- 14 1/2 x 11 1/2
The group of books evaluated for housing in this way shared a number of characteristics that made them good candidates for being housed in flat boxes vs. custom-made phase boxes.
- They were all oversized, or “folio” books that had previously been shelved flat
- Many of them were published print portfolios, in rather flimsy portfolio cases that were easily squashed when other books were shelved on top of them
- They were historically low-use but moving them to the high-density facility would actually improve access, as requests for them could be fulfilled faster given the better staffing resources allocated to the off-site location compared to their previous storage location