The document storage function serves three major objectives:

• Maintains documents for later reference,
• Protects documents against physical loss, and
• Secures documents against unauthorized access.

Let us look at each of these and see how documents are stored to achieve the intended purposes.

Documents Maintenance for Reference Purposes

Documents are referred later for transactions processing, querying and analysis, historical information and proving or refuting claims in courts of law. For referring to documents you have to retrieve them from storage and the storage system must facilitate such retrieval.

It is retrieval facilitation that is important when documents are to be referred to. Retrieval for speedy transactions processing and retrieval for querying and analysis require different kinds of database (document storage) optimization. It is common to have separate databases to meet these different reference needs. Thus, data warehouses storing archived documents are optimized for querying and analysis rather than processing speed.

Use of indexer and search software has become common practice in document management. Documents are indexed in ways that facilitate retrieval for typical queries, as when you index documents by the significant words in their summaries. The search program then uses the index file to quickly retrieve relevant documents when a particular word is searched for.

Document Protection against Physical Damage and Loss

Documents can get damaged or lost through:

• Environmental factors such as dampness and dust
• Attacks from insects such as white ants
• Natural disasters such as fire and floods
• Human errors as when a document is misplaced or is dropped when being carried
• Digital documents get deleted accidentally or corrupted owing to power fluctuations, system crashes, virus attacks, etc

As would be noticed, the factors are varied and require different protective measures. Paper documents are stored strong folders which are then put in steel filing cabinets that are kept in rooms protected from insects and dust.

Natural disasters can affect both paper and digital documents. Paper documents can be microfilmed and the microfilm rolls can be kept in a location away from the main office. Digital documents are backed up and the backups are kept similarly in a separate location. In both cases a secondary storage facility is used so that the original documents can be reconstructed from these in case disaster strikes.

The backups can also come to your help if documents are destroyed owing to virus attacks or other malicious means. These can also be prevented by installing antivirus and firewall software.

Human errors can be guarded against to some extent by implementing systems that minimize the chances of loss, and by training staff to handle documents with care.

Document Security against Unauthorized Access

Certain categories of unauthorized persons can be interested in your business documents, including:

• Competitors interested in your business strategies, product formulas and other sensitive information, and
• Disgruntled employees who would like to damage your business by stealing trade secrets or destroying valuable documents.

Document storage systems seek to guard against unauthorized access by implementing appropriate document access procedures. In the case of paper documents, the filing cabinets and the room where they are accommodated are kept under lock and key.

Digital documents access can be restricted through a system of access rights and passwords. Each user is allowed access only to certain categories of documents, and will need to use his or her password to access even these. Access to highly sensitive documents can be restricted to only highly trusted employees.