Get a bunch of rack servers for all the disk space you'll need. Then get some concrete blocks, and turn the rack servers into shelves.

HA. I love this.

217 business days.

You thought I was kidding about the "spending the next year digitizing" comment?

Then give them the cost of a bookshelf.

Liese is wise. And just the right kind of snarky.

You thought I was kidding about the "spending the next year digitizing" comment?

I'm very impressed by your accuracy!

It's not so much the cost of a bookshelf as it is the physical space it would take up. Our department is pretty much the redheaded stepchild of the company and is expected to take up as little space as possible so the grown-ups can get real work done.

bookshelves also have a lower cost in the long term. Won't there be bandwidth issues if folks are streaming video across the network? Server issues? Hard drive failure/replacement. Then do you back up those 15TB's? Or no, and when the drive crashes, spend ANOTHER year ripping that stuff again. And electricity for the drives. And the additional heat the gear will put off that would require more a/c. And where do you put the drives? And the noise that they will make.

OK, I'll stop now. Just throwing out some yellow flags. Food for thought.

There should be some way to get a "save the company a lot of money" award by letting them cost out the servers and upkeep, et cetera, and then save the day with your radical "More Shelving" solution.

your radical "More Shelving" solution

I have this Rube Goldberg vision of New Shelf leads to Need Bigger Office For New Shelf leads to Need New Building For Bigger Office etc.

The last place I worked used mobile shelves similar to these [link] to store publications.

An alternate suggestion to either a shelf or digitizing -- some of those CD binders, with the platic pocket pages. It's amazing how much less space CDs and DVDs take up when you remove the jewel case/video box from the equation.

radical "More Shelving" solution

I've seen the troll logic of big corporations. That bookshelf means more sitting space, which they will translate into a square footage cost, and then add in the cost of additional HVAC to cover the extra square footage. Also keep in mind that if Jessica gets a bookshelf then everyone above her on the org chart will be entitled to get one as well. So multiply the cost of the square footage by that number of people, and then the actual space that will take. You do realize they'll need a new bigger building to pull this off, and they haven't even moved into the next one yet.

Sean, that's what we've got now - 25 of 'em lined up on the windowsill in front of my desk. Not ideal storage by any means, but perfectly functional for how we use them.

And ND gets the insane troll logic