Some archives claim to be haunted. Some archives probably are haunted. The Indiana State Archives is fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your view of things) not haunted.

Despite the lack of hauntings, we still encounter scary things on a regular basis. We gathered a list of the top 5 scariest things our archivists have come across.

No empty carts

Picture this: You have to transport some boxes. Maybe they’re going to a patron waiting in the reading room or maybe you just finished a big project and want to shelve the records. Either way, you desperately need to transport boxes and there’s not an empty cart in sight.

What do you do? Shift items off a full cart? But then you have to put those items back on the cart...

Do you risk using one of the perpetually empty small rickety wooden carts that seem to have existed before the dawn of time?

Hopefully you never have to make that decision.

Records in the wrong location

You talked to the patron, you understand what they’re looking for, and you’ve identified the necessary records in the database. Now all you need to do is pull the records and let the patron get on with the fun part (searching through the records).

Arriving at its location you discover its not where it’s supposed to be. You double-check the shelf. You triple-check the location. Check the shelf again.

Your heartrate is slowly creeping up. Your eyes dart over the surrounding shelves. It must be around here somewhere.

Shelving that won’t move

Our stacks consist of electric high-density compact mobile shelving. If a sensor senses an obstruction, the shelf won’t move, which keeps our staff and interns safe from accidental crushing. Sometimes an aisle won’t move because it detects something invisible in the way.

Could it be a ghost? A lingering spirit who wants to cause chaos and mayhem? Maybe.

Could it be that a combination of an aging mechanical system and dust and red rot from records can interfere with the sensor’s ability to detect an obstacle in the way? Likely.