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Media cabinet

The dramatic increase in the amount of entertainment and computer media now available, such as CD ROMs, compact discs, video tapes, video discs, and computer discs such as floppy discs, etc. causes a corresponding increase in storage requirements for the media. Magnetic tape cartridges, magnetic disks, and optical disks are all widely used as peripheral memory storage devices for computer systems and other digital consumer products. Large computer systems often operate in conjunction with external libraries of dozens of media elements as well as the media element readers used to retrieve and record data. Although relative large storage systems, such as hutches, cabinets, armoires, and the like are available for both an office and a home environment, they are less than completely satisfactory for storing this type of media. Most people prefer not to store their media on an exposed shelf of the cabinet but rather in a drawer, so that they are out of sight when not in use. Also, the capacity and dimensions of common cabinet drawers are often not compatible with storing a relatively large quantity of media of the above type. Further, even if the media is stored on a shelf, and the shelf has a depth that would accommodate two or more rows of the media, it is difficult to access the media on one of the back rows. Media cabinets are developed wherein media elements are housed in some modules of the system, and media element readers are housed in other modules. Such modular systems typically comprise a mechanism for moving media within each module, as well as a mechanism for moving media from module to module. An advantage of media cabinets is that increased data storage capacity and increased reading/writing capacity can be independently provided by adding either media or drive modules respectively. Typically, media cabinets are provided with one or more drawers for storing material including media material, so that media such as computer diskettes, audio cassettes and VHS cassettes can be stored and organized. An additional benefit of the smaller cabinets is that they can be easily transported by the user.

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