Executive agencies shall make every effort to effect maximum use of filing cabinets and to limit the purchase of new equipment. Filing cabinets should be replaced only in accordance with the standards in subpart 101-25.4. Maximum utilization of equipment should be obtained by:

(a) Disposing of all records that have been authorized for disposition by the Congress or, where such authorization has not been obtained, through the preparation and obtaining of authorized disposal schedules with the assistance of the National Archives and Records Administration.

(b) Removing office supplies, publications, and other nonrecord material from filing cabinets to more suitable storage equipment, except where the quantity of such material is small (as a rule, less than half a cabinet).

(c) Transferring to Federal Records Centers or approved agency records centers (to the extent that facilities are made available) inactive records not needed in daily business but not yet ready for disposal, when filing equipment can be released by such action.

(d) Shifting less active files, not transferable to approved records centers, to fiberboard storage boxes, using filing cabinets only when files are constantly used.

(e) Using filing cabinets with locks only when required by special needs that cannot be satisfied less expensively.

(f) Using letter-size filing cabinets instead of legal-size whenever possible.

(g) Using 5-drawer filing cabinets whenever available in lieu of 4-drawer cabinets.

[29 FR 15993, Dec. 1, 1964, as amended at 53 FR 11848, Apr. 11, 1988; 61 FR 14978, Apr. 4, 1996]