Going the Million-Dollar Distance

Record keeping is a never-ending challenge for municipalities, and Northampton County in eastern Pennsylvania is no exception. In addition to the usual document storage, Northampton County houses an extensive historical archive stretching back more than 250 years. In 2004, the County ran out of space for its growing archives and turned to off-site storage for some of their files.

Problems with off-site storage

While off-site storage can help alleviate some facility limitations in the short term, in the long term it can prove very costly in time and money. By 2012, Northampton’s staff had grown frustrated by frequent delays created whenever they needed to access documents that were stored off-site. In addition, the County’s storage bills had surpassed $1 million.

High-density storage: On time. On budget.

Datum designed a high-density storage solution that increased the County’s archival storage capacity by 47 percent and docket book capacity by 25 percent. The system features locking carriages to protect sensitive documents and barcode tracking for effortless organization. County staff can now quickly and easily access the documents they need, and the County can put precious budget dollars they were spending on storage every month into other areas.