[Sigia-l] Searchable File Names

[David R. Austen]

Hello, Andrew:

You make a good point here: a complicated system won't be used by many
people. In my own realm, I'd use a faceted system more often to create
meaningful file names--if I had more time for that!

First, I like a system that automatically ensures a truly unique file
name--machine-generated numbers and (especially) letters.

Second, the organization would specify and supply a structured
folder-naming system that would essentially describe whatever it
contained. Use of this could even be a requirement of employment by
that organization. It would allow moving files to other folders
without difficulty.

Or, employees could be allowed to use their own, more personalized
file-naming system, but still strictly within that supplied folder
structure.

Either approach could be used for searching. Files and the folder
location system "belong" to the employer and will ensure long-term
usability of information long after the employee departed, regardless
of file-naming.


Thoughts all?


Best regards,

David                       




Friday, September 13, 2002, 9:25:12 PM, you wrote:


AM> On Fri, 13 Sep 2002, Charles Hanson wrote:

>> I wonder whether anyone on the list has had success with developing a
>> strategy to create unique filenames that are "meaningful" enough to be
>> searched for by administrative users (editors) within a content
>> production environment.  For the most part, the files in question are
>> articles or the constituent elements of them (images, flash files,
>> textual elements and so on).
>>
>> That is, the filename itself could contain some indication of:
>>
>> Source/Creator
>> Title
>> Date Published
>>
>> Users would search for some string in the filename.
>>
>> Advice or suggestions?  Many thanks.

AM> There are a *lot* of competing aspects of the files content, role, etc
AM> that might be considered here.  Probably your actual file names will be
AM> based on some of these.  My gut reaction though is that over-specifying
AM> how file names are to be constructed is going to be a bad idea in most
AM> cases.  If you need detailed searchability, you need metadata, and the
AM> filename just isn't really big enough to store that metadata.

AM> Andrew


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