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Dear All, I know the title sounds like a Friday question, but it is a serious one. I realize that this is a very basic question, but I have not found a way to research it because it is so basic. We almost take it for granted. The reason it has emerged is that we recently (3 years ago) merged 8 Councils into 1 council. We are getting better each year and the overall change has been successful. From a records management perspective, it was an eye opening experience. What realized in theory (everyone has a different culture and that leads to different practices) we saw in practice (everyone does the same task differently). :) At the same time, it revealed a generational issue relating to ICT and records management. Staff who had experience with consistent and agreed filing systems maintained them. Staff who had less (or no experience with filing systems) but used PCs more frequently, were less likely to use a consistent and agreed filing system. What I wanted to ask the list is whether (and how) people in your organisation are taught to create, name, and file documents. Do you use technology to constrain the service users choices in creating a document? That is a software package that limits how any document can be created and maintained within the system. Or, do you have general guidelines to instruct staff and let each service or section develop their service or section specific systems? Or, do you just let them do what they want in the way they want and just try to develop better search systems? My apologies if this is an obvious question that has been discussed and developed elsewhere. I would be interested. Moreover, I would be interested in how this is rolled out in your organisation. Is it part of the induction programme? Is it just something that is done ad hoc by the manager or team leader? Here are some references that proved interesting as they addressed the file naming issues, but not necessarily about how staff are taught to file and the methods that are used. http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/records/electronicrecords/erfnaming.html http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/naming-rules.pdf http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/productivity/files.aspx#fbid=c9UIk6gpeQR Any answers on and off the list gratefully received Best, Lawrence P.S. I am purposefully avoiding the larger question of whether staff need to be taught to file at all and let search engines do it all. This is a topic for a forthcoming blog post I am writing. :) ________________________________ Help protect our environment by only printing this email if absolutely necessary. The information it contains and any files transmitted with it are confidential and are only intended for the person or organisation to whom it is addressed. It may be unlawful for you to use, share or copy the information, if you are not authorised to do so. If you receive this email by mistake, please inform the person who sent it at the above address and then delete the email from your system. Durham County Council takes reasonable precautions to ensure that its emails are virus free. However, we do not accept responsibility for any losses incurred as a result of viruses we might transmit and recommend that you should use your own virus checking procedures. To view the list archives go to: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=RECORDS-MANAGEMENT-UK To unsubscribe from this list, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the words UNSUBSCRIBE RECORDS-MANAGEMENT-UK For any technical queries re JISC please email [log in to unmask] For any content based queries, please email [log in to unmask]