VIDEO SHELVING

Abstract: Racks and shelves for displaying such objects as video cassettes boxes have been arranged so that the boxes have been presented face-on, or spine-on. The invention displays the boxes (20) diagonally so both the spine (20a) and a portion of the front face (20b) are presented. The disclosed rack is of vacuum formed plastic sheet material having ribs (15) formed diagonally across a platform (13). The ribs are hollow, being constituted by folds in the sheet material. Dividers (19) are located in the hollow interiors of the ribs. The boxes are lightly gripped between either the ribs or the dividers. Besides video cassette boxes, the rack is applicable to books when they are of standard thickness, and to other objects.

Description: VIDEO SHELVING BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION A video cassette is normally contained in a box which is typically, for example about lβOmm high, 100mm wide, and 25mm thick. It is known to provide storage shelves or racks such that the whole of the front face of the box is presented flat-on for inspection by the customer. The two main drawbacks with this system are first that it takes up a great deal of space, and second that it is hard to hold the boxes to the shelf, so that they can easily fall off, or at least become untidy. It is known alternatively to store the boxes edge on; i.e., with only the spine exposed. Now, the space is used very economically, and each box is held in place to some degree by the adjacent boxes. But this second system is unsatisfactory in that the display on the front ..of the box is, of course, completely obscured. The invention is concerned with achieving the economy of wall space, and the locating of the boxes, yet at the same time with achieving an adequate presentation of the whole display effect of the box; not just the front face, nor just the spine. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The invention is aimed at achieving these objects by the provision of spacers placed diagonally across the shelf or platform of the rack. Because the boxes are all the same shape and size, the spacers can be arranged to lightly grip the sides of all the boxes, and thus locate them on the shelf. Even without such a light grip, the boxes are well located on the platform by the spacers. The angle of the diagonal spacers is such that a substantial proportion of the front face of the box is exposed for display, and the whole of the spine is exposed for display. A customer standing in front of the rack can easily see what is presented on the exposed areas; if he decides to take down a box for further inspection, the remaining boxes do not topple together, since they are held each by their own spacers. The customer can easily replace the box from where he took it, and even after a period of inspection by customers the boxes are still neatly and tidily presented for display, with little danger of their having fallen from the shelf, nor of the corners having become scuffed and unsightly. PRIOR ART U.S. Patent No. 3,737,046 (JETER, June 5, 1973) shows a shelf unit having partitions arranged diagonally, for filing papers. Papers, and files of papers, are thus disposed at an angle so that one can see a narrow strip contiguous with the edge of the face of the file, and it is arranged that the identifier of the file is placed on that strip. The present invention is distinguished from JETER in that in JETER the papers, or files of papers, are not each much thicker than the thickness of the spacer: in fact, a number of files are to be placed between each pair of spacers. Only with objects the thickness of a video cassette box does it become practical to have each box located individually by the spacers. JETER does not contemplate the simultaneous display and presentation of a portion of the front face and the spine of the article. U.S. Patent No. 3,138,261 (WITTEBORG, June 23, 1964) does show diagonal spacers defining compartments, one for each article (in this case, samples of carpeting). However, when displaying carpeting, as when displaying files of papers, there is no reason to have the "spines" on display as well as the front faces; this aspect is reflected in WITTEBORG where the angle of the dividers is very small so that the spine is, in substance, not at all on display. Attempts have been made to keep video cassette boxes neatly on display shelves, as shown in U.S. 4,235,490 (SCHWARTZ, November 25, 1980) for example.. U.S. 3,977,523 (COUS1NO, August 31, 1976), and U.S. 481,505 (MUIR, August 23, 1892), also show means for keeping articles tidily on shelves. All these, however, teach only the display presentation of the spines of the articles, not their front faces. The invention is applicable not only to video cassette boxes but to other articles of a generally similar nature. The characteristics that the - articles should have for the invention to be most applicable are these: first, the articles should have a thickness themselves of around 20mm, or more. The practical thickness of a spacer can hardly be less than about 2mm (if the spacer is to have the degree of robustness, when made of plastic, needed for a display rack); if the articles were less than about 20mm in thickness, then the spacers would occupy an uneconomical fraction of the available room. Second, the article should have display material on both its front face and its spine: a book would come into this category, and so would a gramophone record. The latter, of course, is not applicable for the reason that it is much too thin: only a negligible portion of the front face of a record sleeve would be on display, if the sleeves were to be stored diagonally. The invention is, however, applicable to books, when the books have the third characteristic, which is that the articles should be standard sized. The dimension in question is the thickness, particularly, and not all books have the same thickness: when a set of books to be displayed together do, however, have the same thickness, then the invention is applicable. The invention is admirably suited to the display of video cassette boxes. Audio cassette boxes while being standard-sized are substantially thinner, and are therefore not such an attractive proposition for display according to the invention, though audio cassette boxes would not be ruled out completely on the grounds of thinness as would gramojihone records. Further aspects of the invention will become apparent from the description, with reference to the drawings, of an exemplary embodiment of the invention, which follows. IN THE DRAWINGS Figure 1 is a front view of a rack for storing video cassettes. Figure 2 is a plan view of the rack of Figure 1. Figure 3 is a view, partly sectioned, on line 111—111 of Figure 2. Figure 4 is a side elevation of the rack of Figure 1. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The rack 11 shown in the figures comprises a back wall portion 12 and a platform portion 13. The back wall portion 12 is arranged to be fixed to a vertical wall 14, the platform portion 13 then being disposed horizontally. The rack 11 is provided with ribs 15. Each rib 15 has a back portion 16 which depends from the back wall 12, and a top portion 17 which depends from the platform 13. The back portion 16 of the rib 15 is tapered (in the manner common to ribs in many different applications) becoming progressively narrower the further down from the junction between the back wall 12 and the platform 13. The top portion 17 of the rib 15, however, is substantially not tapered, but has a constant depth throughout its length. The rib 15 is formed as a fold in the material of the rack 11. The material is plastic sheet, of a suitable consistency, which is vacuum formed over or into a mold, using conventional vacuum forming procedures. Forming the ribs 15 in this manner is effective to produce a hollow rib, having two side walls 18 which define a slot between them. It is arranged that the slot thus formed is so dimensioned as to grip a divider 19 placed in the slot, i.e., between the side walls 18. The divider 19 may be of transparent plastic, of simple rectangular shape, but having a chamfer 19a at one corner. The ribs 15 are disposed at an angle to the back wall portion 12 in the plan view, of about 38 degrees. Cassette boxes 20, when placed on the rack between the dividers 19, therefore have their spines 20a, and a part of their fronts 20b, on display and readily visible from in front of the rack. The boxes 20 are spaced slightly apart by the ribs 15, so the boxes can easily be taken down for inspection, and furthermore the boxes can be put back neatly and safely. If the boxes 20 supported one another, taking one box out could cause the rest to topple. Also, in that case it would be possible to insert the box back into the wrong place after inspection. These problems are minimised by having each cassette box 20 individually supported, and each box having its own assigned space, in the manner described. Furthermore, the store-keeper can easily keep his display of boxes neat and tidy, and he can readily see when stocks need to be replenished. As to the magnitude of the angle at which the ribs are disposed, the important aspects are these: if the angle is too large (i.e. if the spines are presented almost full-on to a person standing in front of the rack, then the character of the rack is lost in that too little of the front of the box 20 is on display; if the angle is too small (i.e., if the boxes 20 lie almost flat against the wall) then again the character of the rack is lost in that the available wall space is used inefficiently. Between these two extremes, however, lies a range of acceptable angles: if the angle is less than 30 degrees, then the spine is not well presented, and the use of wall space becomes somewhat inefficient; if the angle is more than about 50 degrees, then too little of the front face is exposed, and even that which is exposed cannot be easily seen from in front. In Figure 1, the boxes 20 simply rest in the spaces between the dividers 19. In Figure 3, however, it will be seen that the boxes 21, in addition to resting between the dividers 19 in the platform 13 on which they are supported, are also positioned between the ribs 15 that depend from the platform 13 of the rack 11 above. The racks 11 are OMP - positioned vertically on the wall 14 so as to achieve this condition. The spacing of the ribs 15 is arranged to be such that a box 21 is lightly squeezed when inserted between ribs 15 in this manner. The racks 11 therefore grip each box 21 slightly, which is very useful in keeping the arrangement of boxes on display visually attractive, even in view of a certain amount of rough use as can happen in a retail shop. The thickness of the plastic sheet from which the rack 11 is made is about 2 mm. If the thickness were less than this, the rack 11 would be too flimsy, even with the ribs, to be used in a shop. If the material were thicker, that would be wasteful, and also it would make the ribs harder to form by vacuum moulding. In fact, if the material were thicker than 2mm, it would become difficult to form the ribs so as to produce a slot of constant, controlled width inside the rib. It will be appreciated that the gap between cassette boxes is two material thicknesses, plus the thickness of the divider. With the material thickness at 2mm, this gap is just about ideal as regards spacing the boxes 21 for easy visibility, and access or withdrawal and replacement, and as regards on the other hand an efficient use of the available wall space. This is because the cassette boxes themselves have a thickness of about 25mm: if the boxes were thinner, the compromise between spacing and efficiency would not be so admirable. To achieve the same proportional compromise with audio-cassette boxes for example, the material would have to be about lrπm thick, and that would render the rack somewhat too flimsy. Similarly, records, being about 3mm thick, are quite unsuited to be stored in racks with the ribs as described, at least if efficiency of use of wall space is a consideration. Books, however, can be very well stored in the racks, provided they are roughly of the thickness of a video cassette box, and provided the books to be displayed were all of a standard size. Naturally, to display those books the racks would be made to suit that standard size. There is more than one standard size of video cassette box or video game cartridge box (and, of course, more than one standard size of book). So long as the thickness is in the region of 25mm, then the rack as described is admirably suited for display storage: as many standard thicknesses of object as there are in that region, or thicker, so many sizes of rack would be provided. The ribs have been shown and described as equi-spaced, but it could even be arranged that the rib-spacing were varied slightly along the rack, so that different standard sizes could be accommodated in the slightly different spaces. This may be especially so when the display includes a mix of video vassette boxes of different f OMP size formats, or when the mix includes video game cartridges. OMPI

Claims: CLA IMS 1. Rack for storing and displaying a series of standard-sized articles, an article (20) being of uniform thickness, and having a front face (20b) and a spine (20a), wherein the rack (11) comprises: a back wall portion (12) and a platform portion (13); and a series of spacers (15;19) arranged along the rack; and wherein: the spacing between the spacers is such that an article cannot be placed on the platform except with its thickness disposed between a pair of adjacent spacers; the spacers themselves have a thickness that is much less than the thickness of the articles; the spaers are arranged each at an angle with respect to the back wall portion and diagonally with respect to the platform portion so that a first article placed on the platform portion and between the spacers partially overlaps a second article placed alongside, and obscures a portion of the front face of the second article, but leaves a substantial portion of that front face exposed; the angle of the spacers to the back wall portion is (a) neither so small that only the exposed portions of the front faces, and not the spines, (b) nor so large that only the spines and not the exposed portions of the front faces of the articles are prominently on display LRΪ and visible from in front of rack; i the spacers are arranged so that they themselves substantially do not obscure either the spine or the exposed portion of the front face of an article; and the rack is so constructed and arranged that each of a series of articles placed each between respective pairs of spacers has the whole of its spine and a substantial portion of its front face disposed and presented for easily visible display from in front of the rack. 2. Rack as claimed in claim 1, wherein the rack includes ribs (15), arranged for stiffening and reinforcing the back wall and the platform portions, and the junction therebetween. 3. Rack as claimed in claim 2, wherein the back wall portion, the platform portion, the junction therebetween, and the ribs, are all formed integrally in and from one unitary piece of sheet material. 4. Rack as claimed in claim 3, wherein the sheet material is plastic, of about 2mm nominal thickness, and vacuum formed to shape. 5. Rack as claimed in claim 4, wherein the ribs (15) each have two respective side walls (18), and are constituted by folds in the sheet material. 6. Rack as claimed in claim 5, wherein the folds are such as to create a hollow space between the two side walls of the rib. 7. Rack as claimed in claim 1 wherein the rack includes dividers (19) which are made each as a separate piece, and separate from the back wall (12) and platform (13) portions but secured to one of those portions. 8. Rack as claimed in claim 6 and claim 7, wherein a divider (19) is in the form of a flat, substantially rigid sheet, " and is secured to the portion (13) by being gripped in the hollow space between the two side walls (18) of the rib (15). 9- Rack as claimed in claim 7, wherein a divider (19) is made of transparent material. 10. Rack as claimed in claim 2, wherein a rib (15) constitutes a spacer, and wherein the distance between adjacent ribs is such that an article (20) placed on the rack is lightly gripped between those ribs. 11. Rack as claimed in claim 10, wherein the ribs grip the article over only a very small area of the front face of the article, so as substantially not to obscure the exposed portion of the front face (20b). 12. Rack as claimed in claim 7, wherein a divider (19) constitutes a spacer, and wherein the distance between adjacent dividers is such that an article (20) placed on the rack is lightly gripped between those dividers. 13- Rack as claimed in claim 1, wherein the spacers are all spaced the same distance apart, and the spacers all have the same thickness. 14. Rack as claimed in claim 1 wherein the article is about 20 mm thick, or more. 15. Rack as claimed in claim 1, wherein the article is a video cassette box. 16. Rack as claimed in claim 1 wherein the back wall portion is flat and is secured to a vertical wall (14). 17. Rack as claimed in claim 16, wherein the platform portion (13) is horizontal. 18. Rack as claimed in claim 17, wherein the spacers ( 15) protrude only below the platform. 19. Rack as claimed in claim 2, wherein the ribs (15) protrude only below the platform. 20. Rack as claimed in claim 7, wherein the dividers ( 19 ) protrude only above the platform. 21. Rack as claimed in claim 1, wherein the spines of the articles on the rack are disposed vertically. 22. Rack as claimed in claim 1, wherein the angle of the spacers to the back wall is between 30 degrees and 50 degrees. 23. Rack as claimed in claim 22, wherein the angle is 38 degrees.

Inventors: COHEN MICHAEL ANGELO, COHEN, MICHAEL, ANGELO
Applicants: COHEN MICHAEL ANGELO, COHEN, MICHAEL, ANGELO
Application year: 1984
Main classification: G11B23
IPC codes: A47F7, G11B23