The mobile desks are somewhat similar to "order pickers," a type of forklift-like vehicle where the operator rides on the lifting part instead of the chassis. O

The mobile desks are somewhat similar to "order pickers," a type of forklift-like vehicle where the operator rides on the lifting part instead of the chassis. Often used in warehouses with high-bay storage to allow staff to grab single items from up high without having to bring a palette down and put it back up. There's a lot of interesting technology out there for high-density document storage. An example I'm fond of is the Kardex-Remstar Lektriever (what a name), which contains a continuous chain loop supporting a set of shelves. An operator enters a shelf number and the machine rotates the stacked loop of shelves to bring the requested one to the front of the machine. They're not so common for document storage these days (they were well suited to frequently-accessed documents like current contracts, which are always digitized these days) but remain common as small parts stores in manufacturing, e.g. for electronic components. They're available with built-in foam deluge fire suppression for this purpose.