It’s good to look at physical systems like this to understand how we’ve landed up with software systems which we take for granted.
For example, when I was about 10 in the early 90s, I remember being taught how to use our school library which at that time had no computers.
The books were sorted on the shelves by author’s surname, so finding them when you knew the author was easy, but what about when you only knew the book title?
Well the solution to that was to look through little cards in a series of draws sorted by book title, when you found the card it had the author name and you could then easily find the book.
These cards were called index cards.
Software databases model this system. A clustered index is essentially equivalent to the books being on the shelves in a particular order, while a normal index is like the index cards.
Email was essentially modelled off of real world postal systems.
And when I read this article talking about standard box sizes, I think of cluster sizes on computer disk drives.
Software is a lot less abstract than a lot of people may realise.
I went into this hoping for a solution to my “how do I store all of my random stuff from having lots of projects and interested”, and while I enjoyed the article, I am shocked to report that my question was not answered.
Strange to imagine that I don’t have the exact same needs as archivists.
Recently I had this question myself when trying to organise DIY materials and spare parts (for which I have a lot somehow). I ended up buying modular "Ivar" shelves from IKEA where shelves can be positioned every 2 cm or so as you need them, and you buy as many or as few shelves and uprights as you need.
I got about twenty ~25 litre clear plastic storage boxes (with lids! Very important to prevent dust etc) and set the shelf height to suit those. Things are roughly grouped into boxes with a big label on the outside ("screws", "adhesives", "electrical" etc).
I built a small ~1.25x0.5m worktop at hip-height next to the shelves so when I pull out a box I have somewhere right there to put it and reach in to get things (otherwise you need to put it on the floor which is a pain). Below the worktop I have some metal drawers that I use for hand tool storage. Finally I have a small plastic open tote toolbox with a handle so I can load that up with bits and pieces and hand tools etc when I am at the shelves/mothership, and easily carry them to wherever I need them.
The wooden shelves are handy as you can cut and modify them very easily so you can trivially customise them to the space you have. They're fairly sturdy when assembled and attached to a wall.
Not very sophisticated really but seems to be working well so far. Previously I was hunting through random cardboard boxes or bags ("I know I've got a foobar whatsit here somewhere!"), typically stacked on top of each other. I think not having things stacked has been the most useful thing - i.e. if you need box X, you just pull it out right away and don't have to unstack 4 precariously-balanced other boxes first only to find that the thing you thought was in the box at the bottom actually was not there and now you need to stack everything back up again then look in another battered Amazon cardboard box in another half-collapsed tower of boxes etc.
> I ended up buying modular "Ivar" shelves from IKEA where shelves can be positioned every 2 cm or so as you need them,
This shelf density solution is what I needed for my small-parts plastic shoeboxes setup. The $1 plastic shoeboxes are a great size (though presumably not so electrostatic-safe nor archival-safe), and you can also stack them 2-high on normal bookshelves, but there's still a lot of wasted space. Which means they take up more floor space, and more visual space.
Good system! Clear plastic boxes and labels are essential.
For projects in progress, I have started using ziplock bags that I label, so I don't have small collections of stuff constituting a project lying all over.
Me too. But I will pass on that transparent packing (boxes, bags, etc) is the way to go. I’ll pack smaller items in zip lock bags (they come in sizes from “snack” to 4 gallon) then they go in transparent boxes. It’s amazing that being able to see into makes finding thing so much faster. I’ve also found that hanging jewelry bags are awesome for parts storage in a closet. Good luck on your journey.
True. Although the ziploc bags can just be left a bit open, that's quite sufficient. The good thing about food-safe bags is that they're usually polypropylene and so good for archival use (and much cheaper than anything from a preservation-supplies shop).
> food-safe bags is that they're usually polypropylene
Interesting.
I've just checked the biggest grocery site in Norway (oda.com) and two out of the three bags they sell were low density polythene, the third was polypropylene.
Not a big sample I'll admit. I'm pretty sure that the very thin bags provided in supermarkets here for fresh loose produce are also polythene.
Oh right, I've never seen polythene resealable ones here in Australia. (The floppier 'freezer bags' are I think, but they're less useful for archiving.)
I think it's mainly PVC that's to be avoided for archiving, and office supply shops are full of the stuff (document sleeves, etc.).
An archivist once told me that if you burn a bit of plastic and it doesn't give off any smoke then it's likely polypropylene or similar, and so good to use. That's never felt like a particularly robust test though (but I'm not a chemist).
> File folders should be manually squared off at the bottom to accommodate the thickness of the records within them. North American file folders generally come with an array of pre-scored lines for this purpose.
This is a revelation for me! Somehow I never noticed what these were for and have been using folders wrong my entire life.
The horizontal vs vertical storage thing is interesting. I've often wondered what the rationale is with the difference, and it seems that it's cultural to a large extent.
One thing that wasn't covered, that sometimes matters for non-institutional collections, is that cardboard is thicker than plastic, and can add quite a lot to the number of boxes required for a given collection. Polyester or polypropylene sleeves (open at the top, and stored vertically, i.e. to allow gas exchange) can be as cheap and sometimes are a better option, at ~0.08 mm vs ~0.5 mm.
I've been really wanting a system like this, but it's just so hard to get a new FOSS app off the ground, and I don't really want to maintain another app by myself, plus apps without a server are hard and I'd rather not self host anything.
It would be so cool to have some kind of generic manager for entity relations and metadata. You could scan a box, then hit a link type button like "Is near" or "Should contain" "Is checked out by", and it would keep it all in a SyncThing folder.
Maybe one of these days I'll find my old notes on building something like that, and try to make an MVP as a web app or something.
EPC Gen2 modules are cheap enough now that a consumer level $100 scanner to directly scan the items themselves, rather than a box code, seems completely possible, but it seems too time consuming unless you want to start a whole business around them.
All cataloguing/indexing software I know of is kinda bad. Especially if you're not running a whole library/collection. The open source projects in this space are under cooked[0], and the enterprise ones are expensive and labyrinthine in use.
Maybe Access or some other DBMS would be better suited.
It’s good to look at physical systems like this to understand how we’ve landed up with software systems which we take for granted.
For example, when I was about 10 in the early 90s, I remember being taught how to use our school library which at that time had no computers.
The books were sorted on the shelves by author’s surname, so finding them when you knew the author was easy, but what about when you only knew the book title?
Well the solution to that was to look through little cards in a series of draws sorted by book title, when you found the card it had the author name and you could then easily find the book.
These cards were called index cards.
Software databases model this system. A clustered index is essentially equivalent to the books being on the shelves in a particular order, while a normal index is like the index cards.
Email was essentially modelled off of real world postal systems.
And when I read this article talking about standard box sizes, I think of cluster sizes on computer disk drives.
Software is a lot less abstract than a lot of people may realise.
Humanity is also way less imaginative than we give themselves credit for.
For the (over?) engineered storage box for Isaac Newton’s death mask, Adam Savage chose aluminum and an archival-quality polymer.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ukv0sPsePY
I went into this hoping for a solution to my “how do I store all of my random stuff from having lots of projects and interested”, and while I enjoyed the article, I am shocked to report that my question was not answered.
Strange to imagine that I don’t have the exact same needs as archivists.
Recently I had this question myself when trying to organise DIY materials and spare parts (for which I have a lot somehow). I ended up buying modular "Ivar" shelves from IKEA where shelves can be positioned every 2 cm or so as you need them, and you buy as many or as few shelves and uprights as you need.
I got about twenty ~25 litre clear plastic storage boxes (with lids! Very important to prevent dust etc) and set the shelf height to suit those. Things are roughly grouped into boxes with a big label on the outside ("screws", "adhesives", "electrical" etc).
I built a small ~1.25x0.5m worktop at hip-height next to the shelves so when I pull out a box I have somewhere right there to put it and reach in to get things (otherwise you need to put it on the floor which is a pain). Below the worktop I have some metal drawers that I use for hand tool storage. Finally I have a small plastic open tote toolbox with a handle so I can load that up with bits and pieces and hand tools etc when I am at the shelves/mothership, and easily carry them to wherever I need them.
The wooden shelves are handy as you can cut and modify them very easily so you can trivially customise them to the space you have. They're fairly sturdy when assembled and attached to a wall.
Not very sophisticated really but seems to be working well so far. Previously I was hunting through random cardboard boxes or bags ("I know I've got a foobar whatsit here somewhere!"), typically stacked on top of each other. I think not having things stacked has been the most useful thing - i.e. if you need box X, you just pull it out right away and don't have to unstack 4 precariously-balanced other boxes first only to find that the thing you thought was in the box at the bottom actually was not there and now you need to stack everything back up again then look in another battered Amazon cardboard box in another half-collapsed tower of boxes etc.
Good luck.
> I ended up buying modular "Ivar" shelves from IKEA where shelves can be positioned every 2 cm or so as you need them,
This shelf density solution is what I needed for my small-parts plastic shoeboxes setup. The $1 plastic shoeboxes are a great size (though presumably not so electrostatic-safe nor archival-safe), and you can also stack them 2-high on normal bookshelves, but there's still a lot of wasted space. Which means they take up more floor space, and more visual space.
Good system! Clear plastic boxes and labels are essential.
For projects in progress, I have started using ziplock bags that I label, so I don't have small collections of stuff constituting a project lying all over.
Get a couple of stacking plastic tubs, and use them for in-progress projects!
For bigger projects, yes. We were able to put all the bags of small projects into one box.
> (with lids! Very important to prevent dust etc)
Yeah, in the long run "stackable boxes with lids that go onto an independent shelf" are much better than various "stackable plastic drawers".
The latter are not resilient against the wear of time, ex:
* Frame for a drawer breaks? Now you have a weird tub with a handle on only one end.
* Drawer bottom breaks? Now you have an empty spot you can't fill.
* Need to move or reorganize content? You either have to put everything on the floor or your stack ability depends on the squishiness of the contents.
It really depends. For anything involving paper or metal the answer is mylar. Keep things out of direct sunlight at 70F and 30-50% humidity.
Me too. But I will pass on that transparent packing (boxes, bags, etc) is the way to go. I’ll pack smaller items in zip lock bags (they come in sizes from “snack” to 4 gallon) then they go in transparent boxes. It’s amazing that being able to see into makes finding thing so much faster. I’ve also found that hanging jewelry bags are awesome for parts storage in a closet. Good luck on your journey.
Depends on what you are packaging. I have learned that books shouldn’t be packaged in plastic since they need to ‘breath’
True. Although the ziploc bags can just be left a bit open, that's quite sufficient. The good thing about food-safe bags is that they're usually polypropylene and so good for archival use (and much cheaper than anything from a preservation-supplies shop).
> food-safe bags is that they're usually polypropylene
Interesting.
I've just checked the biggest grocery site in Norway (oda.com) and two out of the three bags they sell were low density polythene, the third was polypropylene.
Not a big sample I'll admit. I'm pretty sure that the very thin bags provided in supermarkets here for fresh loose produce are also polythene.
Oh right, I've never seen polythene resealable ones here in Australia. (The floppier 'freezer bags' are I think, but they're less useful for archiving.)
I think it's mainly PVC that's to be avoided for archiving, and office supply shops are full of the stuff (document sleeves, etc.).
An archivist once told me that if you burn a bit of plastic and it doesn't give off any smoke then it's likely polypropylene or similar, and so good to use. That's never felt like a particularly robust test though (but I'm not a chemist).
The article specifically says not to do that, as traps moisture.
> moisture
Exactly. So are there breathable dust-proof ziplock bag equivalents? At a reasonable price?
And I find one obvious direction: produce bags. 10" square, 25c each.
> File folders should be manually squared off at the bottom to accommodate the thickness of the records within them. North American file folders generally come with an array of pre-scored lines for this purpose.
This is a revelation for me! Somehow I never noticed what these were for and have been using folders wrong my entire life.
Interestingly, even the file folders that hang from hooks at the top have this scoring.
Canonical: https://www.tops-products.com/pendaflexr-surehookr-reinforce...
Better photo: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MXC0YS5/
(Source: Nerd young child with Pendaflex filing system.)
This is in fact the kind I've been using wrong at home :)
ArchivesSpace has a "space calculator" feature to help with this!
https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace
The horizontal vs vertical storage thing is interesting. I've often wondered what the rationale is with the difference, and it seems that it's cultural to a large extent.
One thing that wasn't covered, that sometimes matters for non-institutional collections, is that cardboard is thicker than plastic, and can add quite a lot to the number of boxes required for a given collection. Polyester or polypropylene sleeves (open at the top, and stored vertically, i.e. to allow gas exchange) can be as cheap and sometimes are a better option, at ~0.08 mm vs ~0.5 mm.
Please don't mess with the default font size. I can't read something this small without having to hack it back to 16px.
Anyone have a good indexing system/software? A spreadsheet works, but I want to scan a code on a box and see what’s inside.
I've been really wanting a system like this, but it's just so hard to get a new FOSS app off the ground, and I don't really want to maintain another app by myself, plus apps without a server are hard and I'd rather not self host anything.
It would be so cool to have some kind of generic manager for entity relations and metadata. You could scan a box, then hit a link type button like "Is near" or "Should contain" "Is checked out by", and it would keep it all in a SyncThing folder.
Maybe one of these days I'll find my old notes on building something like that, and try to make an MVP as a web app or something.
EPC Gen2 modules are cheap enough now that a consumer level $100 scanner to directly scan the items themselves, rather than a box code, seems completely possible, but it seems too time consuming unless you want to start a whole business around them.
All cataloguing/indexing software I know of is kinda bad. Especially if you're not running a whole library/collection. The open source projects in this space are under cooked[0], and the enterprise ones are expensive and labyrinthine in use.
Maybe Access or some other DBMS would be better suited.
[0] https://itsfoss.com/open-source-library-management-software/