Hi to all
I'm forwarding this to this list with Yvonne's permission, in the hope that
some of you can provide her with some assistance. Please send any replies
directly to her, as she is not subscribed to Recmgmt-l. (and apologies to
those of you on multiple lists who will see it elsewhere)
Regards.
Amanda Cossham
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From: [log in to unmask]
Reply-To: A listserv for Metadata Librarians
<[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 10:13:55 -0600
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [metadataLibrarians] File naming--is this the place to ask?
Hi, I've been lurking for a short while here, mainly because we had a lapse
in our digital archive collection project, and we just started working on
it again. Unfortunately, although we've had this project for about two
years now, after a period of about 6 months without a scanner (person), we
finally got a new staff member, and we had two days before she started to
come up with a file naming convention for the second leg of the project,
photographs. We have three different staff members, a cataloger, a
reference librarian, and a systems librarian, working on this, and we all
have different viewpoints, and all we do it seems is talk the issue to
death, and nothing gets done. (Or, better yet, a decision is made, and then
it's revisited as we figure something else out). I'm not sure if this is
the place to ask, I looked over my other digital-related lists, and they
seem to be more academic in nature.
Although we have more issues than this, our immediate dilemma is over the
file naming scheme (yes, shouldn't we have had this in place two years
ago??!!) I've Googled and read all types of file naming convention
articles, looked over other digital projects, and just get more confused.
Nothing seems clearcut. In our case, school district files, we don't seem
to have well defined "collections" like other institutions. I recently
spoke with someone who is the coordinator of a statewide project, and she
thought our naming convention was good. I thought we were on the right
track, and then other problems have cropped up.
My main question is Do file names generally contain an indication of the
physical location of the physical item? We get confused in discussing
physical location with virtual location, and whether the file name has any
bearing on searching (or knowing where a file comes from, in a physical
sense.) Does that make sense? I guess I'm looking for good document
management practices.
An example:
This was a photo we used as a test case.
aisd880pctws0002.jpg
aisd=institution
880= building the item resides in
pc= photo collection
tws= name of school/folder
0001=photo number
They wanted the building location code in there, because we are scanning
all of the archives in the Library Media Center (880). In the future, if
one of the schools should ask us to scan in an item for them, they want to
use the school code for the owning school.
The example given was,
LMC owns a Palm Elementary photo. Our file name, for example, would be:
aisd880pcpalm0001.jpg
Palm owns a Palm photo. Their filename would be: aisd171pcpalm0001.jpg
(May or not be the same photo, I was told--would we want to scan in the
same photo-- obviously photo condition plays into it, but is there a reason
to have the same photo scanned twice with the physical location in the
filename?).
Is there a real need to put a reference to the physical location of the
physical item in the file name (in this case, 880 and 171) for file
management purposes?
This is a separate question/example. We started out with an example of a
school that no longer exists, Tenth Ward School. I used the filename
aisd880pctws0001.jpg. The "full path" to the physical location of this
photo is Box 39 and the folder name (we do not have the folders numbered)
is "Tenth Ward School (1892-1902; renamed Palm School)." There are three
folders in this box (presumably with the same name). There are two
schools of thought (pun half-intended!) One is the file name should contain
the name of the folder or "sub-collection," the other is that it contains
the name of the school. (And there are folders than are
non-school-specific, ex. "Administrative Handbook, 1955.") One idea that
was brought up was instead of using the title of the folder in the naming
scheme, that we use a three letter code for the school. This can work with
current schools, but then we run into the problem, for one example, of an
old junior high school that no longer exists, and that name was used for an
elementary school. These are two separate entities, they are not the same
school.
For file naming purposes, do we look at these items as folder or
"sub-collection" names, or as school names (where applicable?) Photos are
fairly easy, but what about the catch-all folders for one school in the
"Library Files" collection, the description of the collection that includes
"correspondence concerning personnel assignments and changes, circulation
statistics, library staff manuals, annual reports..." etc. If the name of
the folder is "Allan Junior High School, 1923-1945," and the first item is
a circulation statistics report, and the second item is a library staff
manual... Do we include the name of the folder in the file name? Do we just
use a code for the school? Do we put the dates included in the name of the
folder in the file name? (Is it better to number the folders?)
Actually, the first three folders in Box 1 are named:
Allan Junior High School, 1923-1945
Allan Junior High School, 1948-1963
Allan Junior High School, 1964-
How would these fit into the file naming scheme?
Is it more efficient to use a code for the name of the folder, rather than
referring to a list of school codes? What is common practice?
It seems like the more we discuss these issues, the more confused we get,
the more away from simplicity we get. I feel like I am losing perspective,
and that we're thinking too hard.
I apologize for the length of this post. Is file naming really a simple
matter, and we need to step back and look at the big picture? Are we
getting bogged down in details? ACK!!!!
Any help, advice, suggestions, references, will be greatly appreciated!
thanks,
Yvonne
Yvonne J. Beever
Catalog Librarian
Austin Independent School District
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