Resources for Information Management and Preservation File Naming ConventionsWe’ve all been there: you’re asked to review the most recent draft of a document. You log into your organisation’s shared folders and look for the file, but you can’t tell which version of the document you should be reviewing: Show
This is just one small example of an information management weakness that can cause a lot of unnecessary frustration. The more organised we are in managing information, whether it’s documents, spreadsheets or multimedia, the more effective and efficient we can be in our human rights work. This is why file naming conventions are so important. A file naming convention is a systematic method for naming files that will make them easier to retrieve later. A consistent and descriptive convention will allow you to:
Designing your file naming conventionA filename can be made up of a series of descriptive elements, such as keywords, dates, identifying numbers, etc. To design a file naming convention, you must decide which types of elements should be included and in what order. For example, a file naming convention may include the following components, in the following order: [YYMMDD]_[Project]_[Location]_[Event].xxx Examples of filenames based on this example convention might be:
Below are some guidelines for creating your own file naming convention. 1. Consider how you want to sort and retrieve your filesHow do you want to sort and retrieve your files? The answer to this question will help determine some of the essential components of your file naming convention. Keep in mind that file sorting reads from left to right.
2. Use relevant components in your file names to provide description and contextThe file names should contain the essential elements of each file, dependent upon what is suitable for your retrieval needs. File names should outlast the person who originally named the file, so think about what information would be helpful to someone in 15 years. Potential components for human rights organisations include:
Keep in mind you will most likely want to use agreed-upon abbreviations for these components in order to keep the file names short. 3. Keep the file name a reasonable lengthLong file names do not work well with some types of software, so it’s best to keep them short. To achieve this, you could consider:
4. Avoid special characters and spacesSpecial characters such as ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) ` ; < > ? , [ ] { } ‘ ” | should be avoided. Spaces are problematic too because some software will not recognize file names with spaces. Use these alternatives instead:
5. Document your file naming convention and get others onboardIt’s important to write down the rules of your file naming convention to stay consistent. If people other than yourself are naming files, then it’s doubly important to document the convention and store it in a place that’s easy to find. You might want to include this documentation in a readme.txt file in the main shared folder. Here are two examples of documented file naming conventions from our partners: one from the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), and the other from the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).
Beyond text files, you might also consider holding a brief internal training session to explain why the new file naming convention is so important to use and how it works, or creating a video that goes through the key points of the convention. Further resourcesStanford University Libraries offers two illustrative case studies for continued learning on file naming conventions:
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