Though such a room might be combined with a technical library for books relating to the particular art or industry in which the company finds its field of operation, it is advisable to have the amount of furnishings in the room limited so that there may be no likelihood of valuable confidential papers being lost or misplaced. Such a room really needs to have no more furniture than filing cases like those shown in Fig. 217, a large table, and a drawing table or a flat desk for the man who plots curves.

It would be the function of a man having an office like that described to collect for the business all the data and facts which would be of any assistance to the executive, the officers, or the department heads. Most of his work would relate, of course, to getting data and plotting

RECORDS FOR THE EXECUTIVE 293

curves for all the operating reports of different departments of the business. The operating reports regularly furnished by the accounting departments of the business would be gone through carefully, and figures transcribed from these reports to the curve cards mentioned previously. There could also be in the record room a series of maps, large wall charts in the form of curves, and perhaps loose-leaf books or large vertical card files for cumulative curves such as are shown in Fig. 134. Since the information contained in this room is practically a history of every phase of the business, it would be desirable to have the room enclosed with fire-proof walls and fire-proof doors and equipped with fire-proof file cases and furniture so that the destruction of the records by fire would be absolutely impossible. As good light is essential in such a room, large windows are necessary. The windows can ordinarily be sufficiently protected against fire by using polished plate glass reinforced with wire to prevent breaking of the glass from fire in adjoining buildings.