ANÁLISIS DE PROTEÍNAS.

Site of the Records Centre

Records centres are usually located on the edge of urban areas, on sites where land costs less than in the centre of the town. Every precaution should be taken to ensure that dangerous and unhealthy sites are avoided and planners should take care that access for lorries and vans carrying records on transfer should be easy. Existing buildings can be used, such as old factories and warehouses, provided they are secure. For the ease of handling the records, ground level buildings are more suitable than tower block respositories.

In the United States, for instance, the National Archives and Records Service has considerable freedom in deciding the site. Nonetheless, there are some conditions attached: the records centre should be away from the city centre and the actual site should be on the cheapest ground available. The department should be in position to use lorries and vans to and from the centre/"

The Design and Layout of the Building

" Duchein, M. Archive Buildings and Equipment. Op.cit. p . 131.

Cook, M. Archives Administration. Op.cit. p.40. 133

A records centre building is normally a simple one storey building designed to be functional at a low cost. Typically there are storage areas working areas for staff, and a reading area for departmental visitors carrying out research.^

Because the records centre must cater for regular transfer of records from the creating agencies, it must have a large reception area with a loading bay. For instance, for a records centre of 20,000 running metres of shelving, it has been recommended that a reception area about 50 metres square should be provided. A large open sorting/working area is also important. Hopefully the records will arrive sorted, but this is not always the case. In any case, the staff will need an area in which they can check transfer lists against disposal schedules.

The layout of the records centre must take account of the flow of documents from the reception to the sorting area, from sorting to storage area, from storage to disposal

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areas. There will inevitably be continual movement of

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large quanties of documents, on trolleys or electrical conveyers, and the layout must facilitate this movement.^*

Duchein, M. Archive Buildings and Equipment. Op.cit. p . 131.

Ibid.,p.132. Ibid.,p.133.

Equipment and Environmental Precaution

Various measures should be taken to protect the records. These include the provision of fire fighting equipment, protection against sunlight (complete or partial blacking out of windows), protection against humidity and mildew, protection against insects and rodents and protection against theft. The shelving chosen should be simple but strong. Normally metal shelving is used but if it is not available wooden shelving which has been treated to make it insect proof would be suitable so long as there are no sharp edges which could tear the documents. If the records being transferred are suspected of being contaminated by insects or mould, a fumigation chsunber is essential.

Destruction of Records

A high proportion of the records in the records centre will be destroyed after a specific period. Provision should be made to destroy these records in the building itself or to have them removed by specialists firms.

The following are methods of destruction which can be considered: salvage disposal, shredding, incineration, chemical destruction and pulping.

(a) Salvage disposal: This involves arrangements for waste paper collection by salvage companies which pay a price for the weight of paper taken away. The service also includes security arrangements for the destruction of confidential and secret records.

(b) Shredding: Various types of office shredders are sold, varying in size and price. They require little maintenance. A document shredder is worthwhile investment where large quanties of unwanted papers especially confidential documents have to be disposed of frequently. The shredded paper can be used as packing material or sold as waste paper.

(c) Incineration: Special incinerators can be purchased if suitable space with satisfactory fire precautions is available. Also, a special arrangement can be made with a salvage company or outside body for the burning of confidential documents or other papers. If confidential documents are being destroyed and organizational policy requires that someone witnesses this destruction, this can be time consuming and may be very costly. However, a service organization contract provides a certificate of destruction for a truckload of records. This may eliminate the need for a witness from the department or the records centre.^®

Disposal and Retention of Documents. Johannesburg: The Southern African Institute of Chartered Secretaries and

(d) Chemical destruction: Chemical destruction or maceration is the use of chemicals to soften the paper and obliterate the writing. This method also includes pulverization of records including microfilm.

(e) Pulping: Pulping is an irreversible, safe, clean, convenient and economical method of destroying confidential and secret records. The documents are mixed with water and forced through cutters and a screen. The size of the screen may vary according to the security requirements of the material to be pulped. The residue which is created is pumped into a hydra-extractor which squeezes out the water. The water is recirculated and the pulp is dumped into trailers for removal from the premises. Pulping may be done internally or by a contractor.^*

Reference Service

Whilst the records are in the records centre, they remain the property of the creating agencies, which have the right to consult them. Other people should not be authorised to consult these records. A reading room of medium size, about 30 metres square for a repository of 20,000 running metres of shelving should be provided for departmental representatives wishing to consult the records.

^* Ricks, B.R. and Gow, K.F. Information Resource Management. Op.cit. p.59.

Duchein, M. Archives Buildings and Equipment. Op.cit. p. 133.

In addition to making records available in the records centre arrangements should be made whereby records may be requisitioned and temporarily returned to the creating agencies for their use. When records are borrowed they should be identified as coming from the records centre and the department should take care to ensure that they are not mixed up with its current records and that they are returned to the records centre. Normally a conspicuous label is attached to the records informing the user of the files where they came from; it informs the records centre on return that the records are on the books and gives the location code. There must be a procedure for issuing reminders and tracking outstanding issues. This is done by filing issue slips in chronological order. Alternatively it may sometimes be possible to send photocopies of documents to requesting departments, rather than sending original files, to minimise the danger of loss and difficulties in ensuring that the loan of records is returned.

Finally, arrangements can be made whereby the creating department sends an inquiry to the records staff for them to answer. This depends on the manpower resources the records centre has to provide such a service. There should be some means of conveying the inquiry as telephone, telex or fax. It will be helpful if the records centre also maintains reference library books and an indexed file of

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Cook, M. Archives Administration. Op.cit. pp.54-55. 138

subject enquiries.32