The State Archives are full with no room for any more documents and legislators and other state officials are being asked to hold onto their records for now – a request that is bound to renew the debate over a new cultural office building that could cost taxpayers $80 million or more.

Legislative leaders were given the bad news in late June, prompting Senate President Beth Edmonds to ask why more isn’t being done to reduce the documents to digital form for easier storage.

“It’s insane not to be digitizing these records,” Edmonds said. “That’s the first order of business is to digitize this stuff,” rather than enlarging the space or paying for additional storage.

State Archivist Dave Cheever says it’s not that simple.

“One thing we know about paper is it will last,” he said. “We don’t yet have an (electronic) system that can make that assurance.”

He said even if documents were digitized, which would make them easier for the public to use, there would still have to be a paper backup.

“You can’t get rid of it. That would be irresponsible,” he said.

The problem is the current archive space is full with 39,000 boxes of paper records, each about two cubic feet or twice the size of a breadbox.

“In essence, we’re out of room,” Cheever said, and archival documents are stacking up in offices, storage closets and even some state building hallways.

Cheever is working on a temporary solution of buying rolling shelves that can be pushed together to create more room by eliminating aisles, or storing some of the less used documents in a state building across the river from the capitol at the old Augusta Mental Health Institute campus.

“That gives us less than a year’s time, by the time the shelving gets installed. Then we’ll really have no more room,” he said.

Cheever was part of a task force that in 2007 looked at the possibility of either building a new Cultural Building or expanding the current one to provide more space.

Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, who is Cheever’s boss, chaired the task force, which estimated a renovation of the existing building could cost $80 million. A newly built space that could serve as a cultural center would be more than twice that much. Neither plan got backing and the issue is now with the state’s Bureau of General Services, which is supposed to make a recommendation to the Legislature by February of next year.

Cheever said not only does the State Archives office store historic documents dating back to the 1600s, but new paper is constantly being added – at a rate now of 1,105 boxes a year. The Legislature alone creates two boxes a day when it is in session, not to mention the governor’s office, state agencies and the court system.

All the bills the governor signs to officially turn them into law are in the archives, as are copies of his letters relating to state business. Former Gov. Angus King even had his e-mails printed out for preservation, Cheever said.

There are legislative reports, official paper from the Public Utilities Commission and the Attorney General, and records from the state’s courts, like old divorce agreements and transcripts from murder trials.

There are also historic documents, including original, hand-drawn maps of the border of the state; thousands of George French photographs; an extensive collection of photos and records dating back to the Civil War; and an 18-foot long scroll that was a working copy of the state’s constitution.

“We can’t do nothing,” about the space crunch, Cheever said. “We’re frustrated here on how do we meet our constitutionally mandated responsibility” of being the keepers of the state’s official records.