Many thanks to the many who replied. You have made my task a lot easier. To
summarise the information...
The overwhelming majority of people advised me not to consider vertical
hanging cabinets for the following reasons:
- hanging puts strain on the maps and gravity may disort them;
- a 'hanging strip' has to be attached to each map; this is may not be of
archivally sound material;
- if glue or sellotape are used is for the hanging strip they often dry out
so the map falls to the ground (in one case within 6 months of attachment);
- other forms of attaching the strip (e.g. hooks, prongs) may not withstand
the weight of the map, which will then fall;
- vertical hanging is more expensive as it uses up staff time and requires
specialist resources e.g. linen strips, an industrial sewing machine to
stitch hangings on; attaching the strips is very labour-intensive;
- one archives mentioned the Disability Act and felt that flat maps were
easier to access from a wheelchair than vertical (I'm not sure about this
one; I would think both types are equally difficult to access. But it is a
good point to make);
- it is usually OK to stack horizontal cabinets on top of each other; so no
further space problem need result.
Those in favour of vertical cabinets gave the following reasons:
- it is easier and quicker to look through a vertical cabinet, and causes
less damage to the maps than pulling them out of horizontal storage (the
pro-horizontals point out that placing maps in portfolios reduces this
problem);
- Murphy's Law states that the map you want is always on the bottom of the
drawer.
Armed with the majority viewpoint, I will proceed to harass management
accordingly.
Clare Cowling
RCOG Archivist
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