MOOT POINTS IN THE FILING OF BUSINESS PAPERS
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026078 |
| Date | 01 February 1946 |
| Pages | 1-7 |
| Published date | 01 February 1946 |
| Author | J.E. HOLMSTROM |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
The Journal
of
DOCUMENTATION
Edited by THEODORE BESTERMAN
Volume
II
JUNE
1946 Number 1
MOOT
POINTS IN THE FILING OF BUSINESS PAPERS
by J. E.
HOLMSTROM
Head
of
Central
registry,
Imperial
Chemical
Industries
Ltd.
FILING
may be defined as the arrangement and storekeeping of papers so as
best to promote the dispatch of business.
It is a branch of documentation more akin to librarianship than to other
office work; but it differs from normal librarianship because a file is not, like
a book, a completed unit of knowledge which has already been given a title
by its author, and whose scope can be ascertained by inspection. The filing
of current papers involves deciding where to fit them into place in a pattern
which has not yet taken shape. It is as if one received every day a bagful
of unrelated pieces of several jig-saw puzzles and had to fit them together
as and when they arrived without being able to wait until one had the assur-
ance that the sets were
completed—if,
indeed, they ever are completed. An
expert in classification develops a knack of foreseeing which papers, as they
come to hand, are likely to be the starting-points of new themes of dis-
cussion and of assigning them to files accordingly; but the more objective
the rules for doing this can be made, the better. Moreover, indexing and
cross-referencing must be adequate for locating any paper or item of informa-
tion months or even years hence, however slight the clue and unexpected
the angle of approach.
These considerations render all the more ludicrous the assumption still
quite common that filing is an unskilled job which consists merely in the
mechanical act of sorting papers into self-evident batches—a job which can
be done by any secretary or by the last joined typist despite the fact that she
may never have given a moment's thought to the principles involved nor
have received any instruction therein at any time.1 It is therefore all the
more desirable that the rationale of filing should be properly worked out
and taught.
This,
so far as we know, has never been done yet. The very few books
of filing which exist, such as How to file and index, by B. M. Weeks (an
1
There are, of
course,
many kinds of routine papers which classify themselves under serial
numbers or otherwise and, as regards these, the assumption may
be
justified; but in regard to
policy papers it most certainly is not, for these require a special kind of analytical skill as well
as an understanding of their contents by those who have to file and index them.
B
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