The dinosaurs were great creatures. Large, bulky and cumbersome, they occupied  most continents in the  prehistoric world. They were at the top of the tree in evolutionary terms and nothing  questioned their presence, and then…..
A huge asteroid hit Earth and changed its climate cataclysmically; the lumbering and heavy-footed dinosaur could not keep up with the times and one by one they crashed to the ground, dying  from starvation.

 In less than 80 years they had become extinct; the only proof of their existence being a massive collection of dinosaur bones, buried deep under ground, all over the world.

Very sad, but our point  is that filing cabinets are like dinosaurs. They too were great things, large and bulky, taking up space all over the world. Like dinosaurs they were not very efficient, but for a long time, nobody questioned their presence.
Unlike the dinosaurs though, they have not completely died out, but are still thriving in pockets of the business  world.

Despite a huge change to our working environment, they still survive , and in some places, are multiplying at a steady  rate.

Their demise should have been for two reasons, both mainly brought about by the age of the computer. The main commercial  use for the standard foolscap filing cabinet, was to store hand written legal documents for security and easy retrieval.  These yellow foolscap writing pads have hardly been used in the last 20 years, as even solicitors have come to use the more standard A4 size of paper.

The second reason is design and technology in the office furniture industry. Light weight materials and improved design meant that more efficient filing cupboards could be developed.
One of the major failings of a filing cabinet, is that the height of the unit is limited by virtue of the fact that the contents are accessed from above.  So all the space above the 4th drawer is wasted. When office rents  reached £130 per square foot, this was a serious waste of space. 

 A tall cupboard, with 5 shelves  taking hanging files, could accommodate all the files from 3 filing cabinets, and occupy less space than 1 of them

In addition someone had taken the idea of a slatted flexible shutter door, similar to that seen on a very old bureau or writing desk, and applied this to standard office furniture storage cabinets.

These slatted doors slide way inside the unit, taking up virtually no space, yet are easy to close, fully lockable, and some are even fire resistant. The generic term for this style of cupboard  is a Tambour cupboard  and they are now the most popular method of mass and central filing cupboards in offices today.

These units are cheaper than 4 drawer filing cabinets, per metre of storage, are more flexible, and take up less office space.
So the business climate has changed as much as it did when the dinosaurs faded away, but despite all of this this, filing cabinets, which should have disappeared with this change, are still used in thousands of offices, with new ones appearing every day.

Maybe the dinosaurs didn’t die out, but are still working in offices and purchasing 4 drawer cabinets from their  stationery catalogue