[Libs-Or] Classification Scheme for your staff Computer Files?

Mon May 4 14:14:02 PDT 2015

It seems to me that a good old card-sort might be useful for those of us wallowing in shared-drive stew. Or not?

Thank you for question!

Laura

Laura J. Orr
Law Librarian
Washington County Law Library
Juvenile Services Building, MS #45
111 NE Lincoln St
Hillsboro, OR 97124
Phone: 503-846-8870
Fax: 503-846-3515
Email: laura_orr at co.washington.or.us
Law Library website: http://www.co.washington.or.us/lawlibrary
Oregon Legal Research website and blog: http://www.oregonlegalresearch.com/

From: Maureen Cole [mailto:mcole at ci.oregon-city.or.us]
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2015 1:40 PM
To: John Goodyear; Sue Ludington; libs-or at listsmart.osl.state.or.us
Subject: Re: [Libs-Or] Classification Scheme for your staff Computer Files?

This is great John; thanks so much for sharing the screen shot and your thinking behind what you did.

Mo

Maureen Cole
mcole at orcity.org<mailto:mcole at orcity.org>
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Oregon City Public Library
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From: Libs-Or [mailto:libs-or-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us] On Behalf Of John Goodyear
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2015 1:34 PM
To: Sue Ludington; libs-or at listsmart.osl.state.or.us<mailto:libs-or at listsmart.osl.state.or.us>
Subject: Re: [Libs-Or] Classification Scheme for your staff Computer Files?

Alright, I think this should be safe to do.  Here's a screen capture of our file storage top level directory structure.  Of course we aren't public facing the way most of you are so ours will probably be more administrative, but the principles should hold up.  There's no absolute right or wrong but the proof is in the useability.

First rule is NOTHING lives on a workstation.  It's okay to compose there but it quickly needs to move to common ground.  That is one of my pet peeves, no excuse.  NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING.

The second object is to NOT base these on workflows.  I don't know my admin assistants' workflow that well and when she followed that pattern I could never find anything. Now that she's gone I'm glad we cleaned up.  My concept is to pretend it's all for a novice with no preconceived idea of where to look.  Base it on functional areas, think of it as an index or TOC.  If you want to build a workflow folder, that can be done with shortcuts to the files you want to include.

Notice there is an Office Template folder.  All the departmental MS Office templates are supposed to be there, and then Office programs are pointed there to find the templates.

Even though there is a Personnel folder, that's not the secret stuff, just the publicly available info.

We also have a separate archival section that more or less mirrors this structure.  We move old business there to preserve it and get it out of the immediate working area.  I often lament that our historical files don't go back that far.  I intend to keep about everything digitally.  If we have project time I'd like to scan old (2003 and before) documents for digital storage.  And there's oddball stuff, files that float to the top level for lac of attention or obvious home.

Hopefully this will help.

[cid:image002.png at 01D08671.76079820]

John Goodyear

CCRLS

503-315-4584

www.ccrls.org<http://www.ccrls.org>
On 5/4/2015 12:17 PM, Sue Ludington wrote:
Thanks very much for posing the question, Adam!

It may be too involved to share easily in an email but, John, I too would love to hear what worked for CCRLS. Would you consider posting for all, or prefer those of us who are interested to contact you directly?

Thank you,
Sue

Sue Ludington
Assistant Law Librarian
Washington County Law Library
111 NE Lincoln St., MS #45
Hillsboro, OR 97124

503.846.8880 | sue_ludington at co.washington.or.us<mailto:sue_ludington at co.washington.or.us>

From: Libs-Or [mailto:libs-or-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us] On Behalf Of John Goodyear
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2015 12:00 PM
To: libs-or at listsmart.osl.state.or.us<mailto:libs-or at listsmart.osl.state.or.us>
Subject: Re: [Libs-Or] Classification Scheme for your staff Computer Files?

We have put A LOT of effort in to that Adam.  Would be glad to show you and discuss.

John Goodyear

CCRLS

503-315-4584

www.ccrls.org<http://www.ccrls.org>
On 5/4/2015 11:49 AM, Adam Carlson wrote:
Hello,

Our library has a shared networked drive for staff. It includes thousands of files that we all use and share with each other. It is, however, in need of better organization. We often times find ourselves searching high and low for a file that we know is on the shared drive, but we cannot find. Or we end up finding multiple versions of the same file in different locations.

At a staff meeting the other day we were recognizing that we need to try to come up with a better way of organizing staff files. Librarians should be great at coming up with a "classification scheme" for this.

We will, of course, be brainstorming and researching this. But we thought we would ask all of you.  Do you have any ideas on good ways to organize staff files? Are there ways that have worked well or not for you in the past? Are there file naming conventions you have used that help? Has this topic been covered in previous posts? Are there any articles or websites you would recommend on this topic?

Thank you for any ideas you might have,

Adam Carlson
Circulation Supervisor
McMinnville Public Library
(503) 435-5556

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