Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 39. (1986)
Archive Buildings and the Conservation of Archival Material. An Expert Meeting, held in Vienna, Austria October 30 - November 1, 1985 - BUCHMANN, Wolf: Planning an Archive Building. The Cooperation between Architect and Archivist
216 Archive Buildings cated systems for air-conditioning. The following climatic values were determined for the documents section: 18 degrees C (± 3 degrees) and a relative humidity of 50% (± 5%). After detailed discussions with film archivists and film manufacturers, it was decided to meet the demand for air-conditioning in the repository for coloured films with a temperature of minus 9 degrees C (± 3 degrees) and a relative humidity of 25% (± 5%), although this entails a great technical effort. The repositories will be provided with the usual security installations: an ionization alarm system and heat sensors. Also following extensive talks with specialists from fire departments and experts in fire insurance firms, the Federal Archives decided to install an electronically controlled water sprinkler system for the section containing the paper records. Ten thousand square meters of the total area of 15.000 square meters of repository space are designed for files, and 5.000 square meters are for film. A system of movable shelves ensures the best possible utilization of the available space, this of course means that it was necessary to ensure an adequate construction of the floors in that area to carry a weight of 1.250 kilogrammes per square meter. The requirements of the archivist, in respect of the size and quality of the shelves, were discussed in detail; in this respect experience gained during the construction of new archive buildings in various states of the Federal Republic, was a particularly valuable help. Two different types of shelves will be installed; their dimensions correspond with the two sizes of documents, the folio and the DIN size. An area of 2.000 square meters is being furnished with a shelf system having a depth of 0.40 m (double shelves then have depth of 0.80 m) for storing the older records of the Federal archives in the folio size which date back to the end of the 1920s. A total length of 13.000 meters of shelves of this type will be installed on the lowest level of the repositories, where there is a particularly strong ceiling. On the other floors, shelves suited for DIN sizes are to be installed, with a depth of 0.30 m, a width of 1.14 m and a height of 2.32 m, thus allowing the best possible utilization of the available space. A total of 32.000 meters of shelves is to be installed initially; should there be an additional demand for space, then approximately the same amount of shelving could be installed in the same repositories at a later time. The following considerations were paramount for installing the two shelf systems: in order to take best advantage of the repository space, the shelf depth was calculated closely. This means that archival materials with extremely large dimensions can only be stored if the opposite part of a double shelf can also be used. This, in turn, means that it is essential to avoid diagonal bracings which separate the back from the front of the double shelf; in their dimensions (length and width), both shelf systems are designed to fit the archival materials exactly, i. e. the folios, which are stored lying flat, and the DIN sizes, which are stored standing up; the shelf system must be open at the front with the exception of the cover of the drive wheels, in order to allow the air in the repository area to circulate;
