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A filing cabinet (or sometimes file cabinet in American English) is a piece of office furniture for storing paper documents in . In the most simple context, it is an enclosure for drawers in which articles are stored. The two most common forms of filing cabinets are vertical files and lateral files. A vertical file cabinet has drawers that extend from the short side (typically ) of the cabinet. A lateral file cabinet has drawers that extend from the long side (various lengths) of the cabinet. These are also called side filers in Great Britain. There are also shelf files which go on shelves. In the United States, file cabinets are usually built to accommodate 8.5 × 11 paper, and in other countries, filing cabinets are often designed to hold other sizes of paper, such as A4 paper.
Many file cabinets incorporate a keyed lock to prevent unauthorized access to the documents being stored. There are two types of locks. A "cam lock" is activated with a key that rotates the lock. A "plunger lock" is opened with a key but can be closed by merely depressing the body of the lock. The plunger lock allows a user to quickly close and lock several cabinets in a short amount of time.
Some file cabinets have a metal plate or wire structure at the back of each drawer which is known as a follower block. The follower block can be adjusted forward to reduce the length of the drawer so that the file folders contained within remain upright and at the front of the drawer for easier access.
Research by Ester Ellen-PoeChapter 3, "Get Organized at Home! How to Always Find What You are Looking For", Kindle edition validated The Early Office Museum's findings, and suggests that the most credible claim to the invention of vertical filing, as we know it today, appears to have been by the Library Bureau. The Library Bureau’s 1903 pamphlet titled "Library Bureau Systems of Vertical Filing with Interchangeable Unit Cabinets", begins with: "Vertical filing, as originated emphasis and perfected by the Library Bureau, is the most complete, accurate and practical method ever invented emphasis for taking care of correspondence, catalogs, reports, invoices, orders, duplicate bills, and loose sheets, or papers of any kind for any business—large, small or peculiar."Library Bureau Systems of Vertical Filing with Interchangeable Unit Cabinets", Library Bureau, 1903, pp. 1-7).
In addition to the Library Bureau, early manufacturers of vertical filing cabinets included Globe-Wernicke,"Globe-Wernicke Filing Cabinets,” Catalog No. 803 –X in effect June 10th, 1903, pp. 38, 45 Yawman and Erbe Manufacturing Company,“Handbook on Vertical Filing,” Yawman and Erbe Mfg. Co., 1908 and the Art Metal Construction Company.Steel Filing Cabinets “Won’t Burn,” No. 542E, Art Metal Construction Co., Jamestown, NY, 1908, p. 12
Prior to the introduction of commercial vertical filing cabinets businesses kept papers in envelopes in turn stored in arrays of pigeonholes often lining a wall. Finding and opening envelopes and unfolding papers was troublesome and inefficient. However, the concept of vertical filing was clearly practiced as early as 1895 when a U.S. patent (533053) was issued to W.A. Cooke, Jr. for A Receptacle for Letters or Other Papers.Chapter 3, "Get Organized at Home! How to Always Find What You are Looking For," Kindle edition)
After World War II, the Home-O-Nize Company was established in Muscatine, Iowa to provide returning veterans with jobs. Founded to produce steel kitchen cabinets, the company soon encountered the reality of the limited availability of steel. So the company began to make products for others. Finally a small amount of steel was secured and the company started manufacturing steel index card boxes. Soon after, larger cabinets began to be produced including filing cabinets. By designing to minimize the amount of steel, the product was an extremely cost-effective design and had huge commercial success. Home-O-Nize never did make kitchen cabinets and in 1961, the company name was changed to HON. Today, The HON Company, a division of HNI Corporation is the predominant North American manufacturer and marketer of filing cabinets.
The demand for filing cabinets was greatly expanded as a result of the commercial distribution of Xerography machines starting in 1950. This event enabled office workers to "have their own copy" of printed materials. Another influence is the expansion of government regulations that require businesses to create and keep forms and other documents. Some prognosticators have suggested the future of the filing cabinet is in doubt as electronic filing systems proliferate and become lower in cost. Nevertheless, most businesses are still purchasing computer systems with printing capabilities. Unless this trend is reversed, filing of paper is still a viable practice.
In the US, these come in two sizes: for letter-size paper and legal-size paper. Most modern commercially oriented vertical filing cabinets in the US are manufactured in two-, three-, four-, and five-drawer versions in depths of . The drawers are typically supported on a three-member suspension system that allows the drawer to be fully extended for complete access.
The four-drawer vertical file, letter width, is the version purchased by most businesses. The two-drawer file is sold mostly for use alongside a desk. The five-drawer file is mostly purchased by federal, state, and local governments (in a version), as it typically provides the lowest cost per filing inch. Three drawer files, the least popular version, have the advantage of being at "countertop" height so end users can easily retrieve files and use the top of the cabinet as a work area to examine file contents.
The drawers of most vertical filing cabinets are engineered to accept hanging file folders, as these have come to dominate the way most users store information. Some files still have a "follower block" in each drawer. This is a device that adjusts the apparent depth of the drawer interior so that files are kept upright in the drawer. These are the legacy of a time when most filing was done with manila folders rather than hanging files.
For home offices or lighter use applications, vertical files are manufactured in versions. These typically have two-member suspensions and the drawers do not fully extend.
For letter-size files arranged front-to-back, the files are the most effective, as the maximum amount of filing per cabinet is enabled. A file, with letter-width filing front-to-back has no more capacity than a corresponding file, as the additional space would be wasted.
Some users prefer side-to-side filing, as they can search index tabs from a seated position. All-width lateral files can accommodate this configuration, though the capacity of the file is somewhat diminished.
An advantage for lateral files is that access and view of all files can be easier than with a vertical file because the drawers do not extend as far.
In most instances, the top "5th drawer" of a five-drawer lateral file is a flipper door with Roll-out shelf, as most people would not be able to access the top of a drawer at this height.
Side tabbed files often use color codes that represent an alpha-numeric filing system. This methodology is a way to ensure files which are frequently retrieved and returned are easy to find and do not get lost. Finding a file is easy as to color-coded tabs easily lead the human eye to the appropriate location in the filing system. Similarly, a misfiled folder is obvious as an out-of-sequence color code is obvious to the user.
Businesses such as doctors, dentists, veterinarians, police, and government agencies use shelf files and end-tabbed folders to manage large filing systems.
Variations on traditional shelf files, designed to offer increased capacity for a given floor area, include Rotary Storage systems.
In the United Kingdom the dimensions and certain aspects of rigidity, construction, and safety are covered by BS 4438:1969 and BS EN 14073-2:2004. The safety standards revolve particularly against stability with drawers fully open. Interlocking mechanisms to prevent opening two drawers at once are not mandatory, but the employer's responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 makes them advisable. In other EU states the EN 14073-2:2004 harmonised standard will be endorsed by the relevant standards agency, such as DIN in Germany.
In Australia filing cabinets should be to AS 5079 a modified version of ANSI BIFMA X5.2-1997.
Many European companies engineer filing systems that accommodate hanging folders only; there are no drawer bottoms. In the US, most file drawers still have bottoms in the drawers so materials of any sort can be stored.
UK filing cabinets are slightly different from US in the width of the rails which support the suspension files, the US ones being narrower; the UK sizes are known as A4, Foolscap folio and A3.
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