Library Guides: File Management: Systems and theory

Folder and file systems

Naming conventions and folder hierarchies work together to create a filing system. The ideal system has files that are easy to locate, identify, and maintain. Balancing the information contained in file and folders names will help you successfully build an organization system for your files.

One of the first things to consider is how will you and others access the files: will you browse, will you search, or will you use both? This page delves deep into how each system works and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Browse based

A browsing focused file system assumes that you will navigate folder by folder to locate files. It relies on using intuitive categories that associate folder names to folder content and folder hierarchy. For example, a student enrolled might keep all files and subfolders associated with each course in a folder named after the class (Fig. 1).

🗀 Biology

    🗎 syllabus.docx

    🗀 Notes
       
        🗎 Week 01 notes.ppt

        🗎 Week 02 notes.ppt

🗀 History

    🗎 assignment 01.docx

    🗎 syllabus.docx

    🗀 Notes

        🗎 Week 01 notes.ppt
    
        🗎 Week 02 notes.ppt

Fig. 1. An example of how a student might create a browse based system for their biology and history classes, with folders for each class and nested folders for notes.

Browse system strengths:

Intuitive, easy, and fast to create
Works best with simple categories that get more precise the deeper you move into a folder
Optimized for use by people rather than computers

Browse system weaknesses:

Your intuitive categories and names may not be intuitive to others
Some intuitive categories are unhelpful (ex: "junk", "misc.", etc.)
Does not encourage unique filenames

Search based

Search based file systems use a minimal number of folders and rely on file names to provide context as well as content information. This makes file names more complex, specific, and precise as well as unique when done right. Search systems value consistently formatted filenames and since they contain more information, abbreviations are common.

Using the same example as before, a student might save all of their class files in one folder (Fig. 2) instead of creating a different folder for each class and subfolders for different types of files (Fig. 1). A one folder system allows the student to easily compare files between classes and to find all of the files related to a specific class, or all of their class notes, very quickly through a file search.

🗀 Fall classes 

			🗎 assignment 01 Bio.docx 

			🗎 assignment 01 Hist.docx 

			🗎 notes 01 Bio.ppt 

			🗎 notes 02 Bio.ppt 

			🗎 notes 03 Bio.ppt 

			🗎 notes 01 Hist.ppt 

			🗎 notes 03 Hist.ppt 

			🗎 syllabus Bio.docx 

			🗎 syllabus Hist.docx

Fig. 2. An example of how a student might organize their school files for a biology (Bio) and history (Hist) classes in a search based system. In this example the content of the file is prioritized over the class since it comes first in the file name.

Search system strengths:

Encourages unique file names
Efficient and precise search results
Works well with large amount of files and file series

Search system weaknesses:

Less intuitive than a browse system
Abbreviations must be remembered and used consistently
Susceptible to typos

Hybrids

A hybrid system shares characteristics of both systems as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Most of us use hybrid systems because they're a mix and match of what we like best and are extremely flexible. However, they're also not as efficient as a search system or as intuitive as a browse system. Such systems are often characterized by:

An organized but not optimized or excessive number of folders
File names that are not always unique
Accommodating structures that readily adapt to different needs

Conclusion

Search based systems benefit from unique file names while browse based systems instead rely on the relationship of a file to its location in a folder hierarchy. The type of system you use will depend on your organization goals, the number of files you need to manage, and how many people will need to access and use the files. Both browse and search systems rely on consistency while hybrid systems are inconsistent, quick, and adaptable.