Even in these days of electronic documents, scanners and online databases, we still have paper documents and it is likely that they will always be with us. Such documents could be books, magazines, manuscripts, maps, photographs, brochures, leaflets and signed papers. Some of these could be hundreds of years old and very valuable. Others could be of sentimental value to an individual. Scanning such documents for electronic storage may not be feasible due to the sheer time it would take. Also some signed documents may not be acceptable as a legal item in electronic form, which is open to forgery. And in electronic form the document is just not the same as the tangible original item. So tangible documents are here to stay, and when it comes to document storage, shelving is a great solution.

This applies in the home, in business and the world of research and academia. Shelves enable documents to be kept off the ground, so there is less chance of damage from dirt, damp, getting trodden on or kicked around. With its own shelf, a document can sit serenely, away from the risk of damage. Shelving as a means of document storage enables you to see the items easily as they will be around eye level. As documents are often light, slim and numerous, it is essential that you have a storage system that enables them to be found. Documents are often placed in boxes, which need to be labelled clearly, either with a code or an actual description of what's in the box. Doing this is essential for making them easy to locate. That way, you can have a massive archive of documents with rows and rows of shelves, yet you can get you hands on a particular document quickly, because your system will tell you exactly where it is.

Depending on your situation, whether you're at home, in a small office, or in a massive reasearch establishment, shelves can be used in a variety of ways for document storage. They can be free-standing units, or mounted on a wall as a single shelf, or positioned against a wall or in a corner. Regardless of the indexing system you use, larger, heavier documents like books and ledgers should always be stored on the lower shelves and lighter documents on the upper shelves. This is the right thing to do for a number of reasons. Getting a bulky document or box off a lower shelf is safer than getting it from high up. If you lose your balance and drop a document or a box full of documents, both you and the box have less distance to drop. Also, the stability of the shelf unit is improved if the heavier items are lower down. The heavier items will keep the shelf unit more securely anchored, while they would have the exact opposite effect if stored high up.

In libraries, both in industry and academia, you will often see document storage systems which include a mechanical element. Here, the shelf units can be opened up so you can pass in between. Then they can be closed again when you have finished so that the units have no space between them. But people must be vigilant of the safety implications of this set up and check the aisles for people before closing the isles up. As many more documents can be stored this way, such systems are useful as a space-saving measure when you have thousands of documents and books to store.