Today's Filing Cabinets

Everyone is used to old filing cabinets where everyone had their own method of filing. Sometimes it was placed in alpha order by first name or other times it was done by last name. But there was always the exception to the rule. This person was really know by a different name so we'll put it under that name. The problem was when someone went through the files 5 years later when the person who created the system was no longer around, they couldn't find the information they were looking for.

Today's modern filing cabinets are information systems. These databases of information are used in the same ways that those filing cabinets were used. Besides the basic difference of coding from one system to another, they all handle information and records in a different way from another system. Each system thinks they have found the best practice for society, but the programmers do not always meet the users. The users each have their own "system" for filing away information and even within a department the system the system differs.

In 2010, my school moved away from the 30+ spread sheets, information systems, databases that we ran. I can't say we moved to a single system as our requirements could not be served by a single vendor. We did streamline most of the major systems into one system. The most challenging part for us was even though we are a young school in the area, we have been using an formal computer information system in one shape since at least the mid 80s and we have a rich history of 100 years of information that is stored somewhere.

As a school that has used an information system since early information systems existed, we have embraced the technology. When the computer system couldn't keep up with our needs we adopted a method to figure it out and make the system work. We created our own method of filing when we had a problem to solve. When the systems improved to handle this problem, we often did not get new training and had continued to "hack" the system. This left some very messy systems of information.

Twenty+ years latter, we are on a new system, and the next step in the process was cleaning up information. I continue to work on this cleanup and figuring out how we can guarantee the information we have is the best. But the methods to maintaining information that the staff used at the beginning are sometimes beyond me. Perhaps my methods will be beyond whoever fills this role in twenty years, but whenever I do something I try to make sure that someone will understand why it was done that way. When the system changes to the work arounds and hacks we have adopted I try to go back and make sure we update our data.

Our modern day filing cabinet is something that I can access from my phone, computer, or iPad. It lives in a different state and I will never "see" this file space. In many cases, our approach is the same as it was when it was in our same office space and very difficult to adjust in order to maintain an efficient information system.