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Archive safekeeping
What kind of images does the word ‘archive’ bring to mind? Likely not the same as at Merak. There, each archive item – paper or electronic – gets five-star treatment and there is a 0% margin of error for indexing and accessing. Merak’s director, Mr Rooms, explains.
Archive safekeeping
 What does Merak archive?
"Whatever the customer requires. Merak manages more than 640 kilometres of archive shelving for the storage of paper archives under ideal conditions. The water-resistant Merak boxes are completely anonymous, except for the unique identifying barcode. This is the key to a system that allows us to… make no mistakes. With every movement of a box, the barcode is scanned and categorized as ‘in’ or ‘out’. So our clients know at any given moment which box is where, even the person who requested access! We are also ISO 9001:2000 certified for all our services."
Archive safekeeping after reconditioning
Do you reject archives that are in bad shape?
 "No, on the contrary, it gives us great satisfaction to take
documents in poor condition and to thoroughly restore them, breathing
new life into them. And then to give them a place in our neat
and tidy archive storage areas, equipped with air conditioning, air
filters, sectional fire protections and access monitoring. Does the
client have archives for which little activity is anticipated? Then
we offer, at no extra cost, high-quality plastic ‘pallet boxes’ to
store such documents in our facility”. >
Archiving paper and microfilm
Safekeeping of computer back-ups
Do computer back-ups get special handling?
"In fact, back-ups are protected in anonymous boxes in our electronic vaults. MERAK is exceptionally proud of its e-bunker, a real Fort Knox for critical back-ups and irreplaceable documents. The underground e-bunker protects the contents against a direct airplane crash or a fire persisting for 6 hours, thanks to metres of layered concrete, kryptonite extinguishing gas and fingerprint access. The vault also forms a perfect Faraday cage, making precious software immune to an e-bomb, a relatively easily assembled weapon capable of fully disabling any electronics in its wake.”
> External
safekeeping back-ups
Source code safekeeping
If we speak of source codes: MERAK also offers a Software Escrow service, in which they function as a go-between. So that you can be assured that your custom source codes will always be available. Even if the supplier should suffer bankruptcy or your data files be compromised.
> Software Escrow
Archive safekeeping: electronic documents
What does MERAK think about the idea of the ‘paperless desk’?
"Full of confidence, since we house everything under one roof for the complete process of electronic archiving. With scanners that can take on a business card as well as an AO format of any length. Taking gigantic technical drawings and reducing them to small files with high resolution. Indexed according to the wishes of the client or even completely recorded (using OCR). The customer can have the files delivered on cd-rom or access them via the internet.
Relatively new is our ‘scan on
demand’. Here, the paper document that the customer requires remains
physically at MERAK. An electronic copy is quickly made and sent
through. Fast and convenient, an elegant solution, as the document
is now is a form that can be readily shared with internal or
external advisors." > Electronic
archiving
Archive safekeeping and consultation
How does a customer access a stored paper document?
"Thanks to the powerful MERAK software, he tracks down the right box in an instant. MERAK will deliver it to his door or to the convenient consultation rooms at the MEARK archive facility."
Is external archive safekeeping costly?
Is professional external archiving affordable?
 (smiling) "Indeed, that is often the most difficult point to ‘market’ to a potential customer. Because external archiving is cheaper than internal archiving. Always. How is that possible? Because MERAK is able to distribute the heaviest costs – the fixed costs – among all of its customers. For them remains only a 100% variable cost factor, all-in, calculated according to the actual number of boxes and the specified options (i.e. sealing). But leaving out the anxiety for fire, power outage or flooding or an archivist who is off work… because MERAK is at your service 24/7.”
> Archiving paper and microfilm
> Electronic
archiving
> External safekeeping back-ups
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