The Filing Cabinet
May 16, 2021 8:23 AM Subscribe
The filing cabinet was critical to the information infrastructure of the 20th-century. Like most infrastructure, it was usually overlooked (Places Journal): "But if it appears to be banal and pervasive, it cannot be so easily ignored. The filing cabinet does not just store paper; it stores information; and because the modern world depends upon and is indeed defined by information, the filing cabinet must be recognized as critical to the expansion of modernity. In recent years scholars and critics have paid increasing attention to the filing systems used to store and retrieve information critical to government and capitalism, particularly information about people — case dossiers, identification photographs, credit reports, et al. But the focus on filing systems ignores the places where files are stored. Could capitalism, surveillance, and governance have developed in the 20th century without filing cabinets? Of course, but only if there had been another way to store and circulate paper efficiently. The filing cabinet was critical to the infrastructure of 20th-century nation states and financial systems; and, like most infrastructure, it is often overlooked or forgotten, and the labor associated with it minimized or ignored." via things magazine
"The filing cabinet contributed to the rise of a popular nontechnical understanding of information as something discrete and specific. Critically, it illustrates the moment in which information gained an identity separate from knowledge, an instrumental identity critical to its accessibility. In its separation from knowledge, information was granted authority based on a set of ideas and practices that limited interpretation; in contrast, a subject, someone who “knows” underwrites the authority of knowledge. In turn this moment in the genealogy of information is tied to broader social and economic forces that made efficiency — “saving time” — one of the defining problems of modern life. In this historical period, filing technology provided a conceptual gateway for understanding information as a thing that could be standardized, atomized, and stripped of context — information as a universal and impersonal quantity. While this conception did not begin or end with the filing cabinet, the file became a common way of making this information comprehensible, as it continues to do in the present with the information and data encountered through digital technology."
Filing work via computers (or any clerical computer work, really) was originally women's work as well, and only in the modern world did computer-work get overrun by techbros.
For example, Hedy Lamarr first thought of and patented frequency hopping, which is still used in Bluetooth today.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:02 AM on May 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
For example, Hedy Lamarr first thought of and patented frequency hopping, which is still used in Bluetooth today.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:02 AM on May 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm currently digitizing over 1000 records from the US Army Corps, and the transitions in filing, from when the US Army Corps was 100% military, and used typewritten forms, to the civilian days of the 1960's, is noticeable.
The Army records from the 30's are preserved so much better than the 60's, it's night and day.
I suppose the 1960's also saw an exponential increase in drilling in the nation's wetlands, so, perhaps the excessive amount of permits per year might have affected the record keeping. But there are a ton of missing procedural documents, much less the optional records, like local government commentary on the federal process.
Then, in the 80's, everything was scanned to microfiche, and, ostensibly, each file was given a cover sheet / metadata form as it was scanned. These cover sheets are almost useless, although it looks like they were designed so that someone could enter information about the permit into a C database, or punch cards.
But these coversheets have fields like "latitude / longitude", although latitude and longitude were not used by anyone, not engineers, surveyors, or boat captains, from the 30's to the 60's. Instead, people were using mile markers, USC&GS markers, compass directions, or survey and range listings. So, although there is geographical information in the original documents, including detailed maps and engineering figures, 0% of that information makes it to the initial digitization effort in the 1980's.
I think these microfiche records were scanned to .pdf in the 2000s, or perhaps some of them were scanned when we made our FOIA request, not sure. Many of the scans in the 1960's are badly transferred, and thus unreadable. but i'm not sure when in the process the scan was compromised.
also, no women are listed in any of these documents, only men. I thought that was interesting.
but it certainly made me appreciate the filing cabinet, is all.
posted by eustatic at 9:53 AM on May 16, 2021 [22 favorites]
The Army records from the 30's are preserved so much better than the 60's, it's night and day.
I suppose the 1960's also saw an exponential increase in drilling in the nation's wetlands, so, perhaps the excessive amount of permits per year might have affected the record keeping. But there are a ton of missing procedural documents, much less the optional records, like local government commentary on the federal process.
Then, in the 80's, everything was scanned to microfiche, and, ostensibly, each file was given a cover sheet / metadata form as it was scanned. These cover sheets are almost useless, although it looks like they were designed so that someone could enter information about the permit into a C database, or punch cards.
But these coversheets have fields like "latitude / longitude", although latitude and longitude were not used by anyone, not engineers, surveyors, or boat captains, from the 30's to the 60's. Instead, people were using mile markers, USC&GS markers, compass directions, or survey and range listings. So, although there is geographical information in the original documents, including detailed maps and engineering figures, 0% of that information makes it to the initial digitization effort in the 1980's.
I think these microfiche records were scanned to .pdf in the 2000s, or perhaps some of them were scanned when we made our FOIA request, not sure. Many of the scans in the 1960's are badly transferred, and thus unreadable. but i'm not sure when in the process the scan was compromised.
also, no women are listed in any of these documents, only men. I thought that was interesting.
but it certainly made me appreciate the filing cabinet, is all.
posted by eustatic at 9:53 AM on May 16, 2021 [22 favorites]
I'm guessing the author doesn't know about Barney Google?
I have no love for filing cabinets: any I've been responsible for are usually burgeoning palm-trees of escaping documents. But I'm sad to see a local company — Long Life Lock — close down, for whom filing cabinets were their livelihood. Long Life were family owned, and operated out of a very distinctive midcentury industrial building near me. They would install and repair office furniture. They had contracts with the big Toronto legal firms to maintain the huge banks of cabinets they used to keep. You had a filing cabinet or office chair — didn't matter what age — they could repair it. They had an amazing room in their workshop that was lined from floor to (very high) ceiling with tiny drawers, each not much bigger than a card catalogue, labelled by lock manufacturer and key number. A temple and monument to organization.
posted by scruss at 10:00 AM on May 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
I have no love for filing cabinets: any I've been responsible for are usually burgeoning palm-trees of escaping documents. But I'm sad to see a local company — Long Life Lock — close down, for whom filing cabinets were their livelihood. Long Life were family owned, and operated out of a very distinctive midcentury industrial building near me. They would install and repair office furniture. They had contracts with the big Toronto legal firms to maintain the huge banks of cabinets they used to keep. You had a filing cabinet or office chair — didn't matter what age — they could repair it. They had an amazing room in their workshop that was lined from floor to (very high) ceiling with tiny drawers, each not much bigger than a card catalogue, labelled by lock manufacturer and key number. A temple and monument to organization.
posted by scruss at 10:00 AM on May 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
Filing cabinets are also, generally, something you cannot give away today, just like old CRT TVs or monitors. The cabinets at least can be dumped at the metal recycler without too much worry about negative environmental impacts.
posted by maxwelton at 10:47 AM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 10:47 AM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm torn between finding a surplus cabinet at work and just putting all of those unread articles into Zotero. Zotero is winning. I do regret not taking a huge wooden card catalogue out of the dumpster at the University of Louisville when I was a student there.
posted by mecran01 at 10:52 AM on May 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by mecran01 at 10:52 AM on May 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
"a huge wooden card catalogue out of the dumpster "
When I went to Grad School in Boston in 1979, the lab had a standard footprint steel file cabinet with custom drawers [like this] for holding thousands of Hollerith punch cards each representing a datum from the field work. By the time I left in 1983, all these data were properly digitized and the card-cabinets were archived in the boss's garage at home.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:17 AM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
When I went to Grad School in Boston in 1979, the lab had a standard footprint steel file cabinet with custom drawers [like this] for holding thousands of Hollerith punch cards each representing a datum from the field work. By the time I left in 1983, all these data were properly digitized and the card-cabinets were archived in the boss's garage at home.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:17 AM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
In the space of less than ten years, I went from multiple file drawers full of folders to a couple of folders in a single file drawer. Paper had become less and less common in business. Which wasn't good for a company that made copiers and printers and had forgotten how to innovate.
posted by tommasz at 11:23 AM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by tommasz at 11:23 AM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
Filing work via computers (or any clerical computer work, really) was originally women's work as well, and only in the modern world did computer-work get overrun by techbros.
in the 80's and 90's, I remember hearing about executives who considered learning to use the new computer that had appeared on their desk to be out of the question: because it has a keyboard, you type on keyboards, secretaries type, typing is women's work, so are computers, QED. This attitude is behind some of the stories you hear about bosses having their email printed out to be read, I think.
posted by thelonius at 11:44 AM on May 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
in the 80's and 90's, I remember hearing about executives who considered learning to use the new computer that had appeared on their desk to be out of the question: because it has a keyboard, you type on keyboards, secretaries type, typing is women's work, so are computers, QED. This attitude is behind some of the stories you hear about bosses having their email printed out to be read, I think.
posted by thelonius at 11:44 AM on May 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
But these coversheets have fields like "latitude / longitude", although latitude and longitude were not used by anyone, not engineers, surveyors, or boat captains, from the 30's to the 60's.
Interesting. Converting between datums/CRSes is still non-trivial for people who aren't programmers (and even then...) It must have been an absolute nightmare back in the day.
posted by klanawa at 12:34 PM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
Interesting. Converting between datums/CRSes is still non-trivial for people who aren't programmers (and even then...) It must have been an absolute nightmare back in the day.
posted by klanawa at 12:34 PM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
Filing work via computers (or any clerical computer work, really) was originally women's work as well, and only in the modern world did computer-work get overrun by techbros.
I think this statement is accurate as far back as about a hundred years ago. Prior to WWI, secretarial work, including organizing and filing paperwork, was mostly done by men. Bob Cratchit and Bartley the Scrivener are fictionalized examples of the male secretary of the 1800s. This situation grew out of the late Middle Ages, in which the clergy did most of this sort of paperwork (the word clerk being derived from clergy). Prior to that, paperwork and record keeping was generally handled by monastic houses, or by male amanuenses/scribes of the wealthy or merchant class.
It wasn’t until WWI that we had a major shift to women secretaries in North America and Europe. As the able-bodied male labor force was drained from nearly every sector to go fight the war, necessity meant expanding the clerical sector to include women. Additionally, clerical work (and the tangential tasks of sifting and processing SIGINT), was seen as a way that women could contribute to the war effort without having to pick up a gun. Thus was born the women’s secretarial pool in both industry and in the military.
The stereotypical all-woman secretarial pool of the 1920s-1960s, with dozens of desks, neatly arrayed in rows in a large room, was something that did not exist 50 years earlier. Before WWI, it would have been a room full of men.
It’s interesting how this change occurred just as the typewriter, which had been invented in the 1860s, was just becoming widely used in offices at the beginning of the 20th century. So that typing, and the jobs that required it, became coded as women’s work. And of course, the women that generated the paperwork and processed the paperwork also had to organize it. So the filing cabinet — and filing more generally — became the purview of women. So that when we get to the 1950s, and in only half a century, the common conception of “secretary” has shifted to mean “a woman, subordinate to a male decision-maker, responsible for note-taking, typing and filing.”
It’s interesting, too, that for all of its sexist baggage, is nevertheless probably the most significant early entry point that women generally had into business and office work outside the home. Sort of how the women who, responding to the labor shortage in WWII, began breaking down barriers by doing factory work. The gender shift in the field of secretarial work in the 1910s was also taking place in the context of the women’s suffrage movement, where women were organizing a social movement for greater autonomy. It’s probably not coincidental that women got the vote in 1920 in the US, only a few years after their participation in the workforce exploded due to WWI.
It’s odd to see how some elements and offshoots of this whole culture shift of the past 100 years have led to computer programming being a mostly male-dominated field by the early 1980s, while traditional secretarial work using IBM Selectric typewriters was still predominately being carried out by women. There’s no doubt that sexism had a huge hand in this, as teenage boys in high school were encouraged to join computer clubs and take traditionally tech-related courses such as electronics and drafting, while teenage girls were encouraged to take Home EC and typing classes.
posted by darkstar at 12:41 PM on May 16, 2021 [24 favorites]
I think this statement is accurate as far back as about a hundred years ago. Prior to WWI, secretarial work, including organizing and filing paperwork, was mostly done by men. Bob Cratchit and Bartley the Scrivener are fictionalized examples of the male secretary of the 1800s. This situation grew out of the late Middle Ages, in which the clergy did most of this sort of paperwork (the word clerk being derived from clergy). Prior to that, paperwork and record keeping was generally handled by monastic houses, or by male amanuenses/scribes of the wealthy or merchant class.
It wasn’t until WWI that we had a major shift to women secretaries in North America and Europe. As the able-bodied male labor force was drained from nearly every sector to go fight the war, necessity meant expanding the clerical sector to include women. Additionally, clerical work (and the tangential tasks of sifting and processing SIGINT), was seen as a way that women could contribute to the war effort without having to pick up a gun. Thus was born the women’s secretarial pool in both industry and in the military.
The stereotypical all-woman secretarial pool of the 1920s-1960s, with dozens of desks, neatly arrayed in rows in a large room, was something that did not exist 50 years earlier. Before WWI, it would have been a room full of men.
It’s interesting how this change occurred just as the typewriter, which had been invented in the 1860s, was just becoming widely used in offices at the beginning of the 20th century. So that typing, and the jobs that required it, became coded as women’s work. And of course, the women that generated the paperwork and processed the paperwork also had to organize it. So the filing cabinet — and filing more generally — became the purview of women. So that when we get to the 1950s, and in only half a century, the common conception of “secretary” has shifted to mean “a woman, subordinate to a male decision-maker, responsible for note-taking, typing and filing.”
It’s interesting, too, that for all of its sexist baggage, is nevertheless probably the most significant early entry point that women generally had into business and office work outside the home. Sort of how the women who, responding to the labor shortage in WWII, began breaking down barriers by doing factory work. The gender shift in the field of secretarial work in the 1910s was also taking place in the context of the women’s suffrage movement, where women were organizing a social movement for greater autonomy. It’s probably not coincidental that women got the vote in 1920 in the US, only a few years after their participation in the workforce exploded due to WWI.
It’s odd to see how some elements and offshoots of this whole culture shift of the past 100 years have led to computer programming being a mostly male-dominated field by the early 1980s, while traditional secretarial work using IBM Selectric typewriters was still predominately being carried out by women. There’s no doubt that sexism had a huge hand in this, as teenage boys in high school were encouraged to join computer clubs and take traditionally tech-related courses such as electronics and drafting, while teenage girls were encouraged to take Home EC and typing classes.
posted by darkstar at 12:41 PM on May 16, 2021 [24 favorites]
Oops, words omitted...added for clarity:
It’s interesting, too, that for all of its sexist baggage, secretarial work is nevertheless probably the most significant early entry point that women generally had into business and office work outside the home.
Acknowledging that women-coded careers like nursing, teaching, etc., had already been a reliable conduit for women working outside the home, but not so much located in the traditional office/business setting.
posted by darkstar at 12:51 PM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
It’s interesting, too, that for all of its sexist baggage, secretarial work is nevertheless probably the most significant early entry point that women generally had into business and office work outside the home.
Acknowledging that women-coded careers like nursing, teaching, etc., had already been a reliable conduit for women working outside the home, but not so much located in the traditional office/business setting.
posted by darkstar at 12:51 PM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
Fictional reference points: Trollope's The Three Clerks, various Dickens characters, Zola's Au Bonheur des Dames for the rise of filing culture before women are widely accepted in offices.
Alternate article: "Mister Secretary" points to research on how and when and where various jobs split into the higher- and lower-status parts that became gendered. To nest some quotes therefrom:
I've been cursorily googling to figure out when the intermediate technology, the file *box*, was invented, but what I mostly get is that the Fellowes company was founded in 1917 to make "bankers' boxes". Possibly a full box of paper is so heavy that pasteboard would not have been strong enough, and double-faced corrugated cardboard only dates to 1874.
posted by clew at 1:07 PM on May 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
Alternate article: "Mister Secretary" points to research on how and when and where various jobs split into the higher- and lower-status parts that became gendered. To nest some quotes therefrom:
The question is, then, why the perceived skill level of these clerical jobs has such a strong correlation with technology. I hate to drop in half a quote from a whole book, but Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri provide a crucial insight into this question in their 2000 book Empire. Tools, they claim in chapter 3.4, “have always abstracted labor power from the object of labor to a certain degree.” To that, I would add that the idea of tools as intermediaries goes both ways. Tools such as typewriters, by performing some measure of a job’s labor themselves, also abstract labor power from their users.(But I can't agree that women moved into factory work in WWII -- the Lowell Mill Girls and Germinal were first.)
I've been cursorily googling to figure out when the intermediate technology, the file *box*, was invented, but what I mostly get is that the Fellowes company was founded in 1917 to make "bankers' boxes". Possibly a full box of paper is so heavy that pasteboard would not have been strong enough, and double-faced corrugated cardboard only dates to 1874.
posted by clew at 1:07 PM on May 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
the word clerk being derived from clergy
Via, of course, the word "cleric". Which is why my current D&D cleric is a red dragonborn whose obsession with the keeping, filing and inspection of paperwork places him at odds with his clan. There's a reason why chaotic tendencies and the ability to breathe fire are not typically part of an effective document handling strategy.
posted by howfar at 1:14 PM on May 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
Via, of course, the word "cleric". Which is why my current D&D cleric is a red dragonborn whose obsession with the keeping, filing and inspection of paperwork places him at odds with his clan. There's a reason why chaotic tendencies and the ability to breathe fire are not typically part of an effective document handling strategy.
posted by howfar at 1:14 PM on May 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
(But I can't agree that women moved into factory work in WWII -- the Lowell Mill Girls and Germinal were first.)
So true, and not to be elided! Though their work had less to do with clerical work such as filing and other paperwork processing.
I’m laughing at myself, because when I wrote my follow-on edit comment, I actually wrote “and textile/garment workers” as a third traditionally women’s career out of the house, along with nursing and teaching, and then deleted it in favor of writing “etc.”. In retrospect, that was a poor editorial choice, because women’s involvement in the garment industry and their organizing efforts, particularly in the early 1900s, can’t be overstated.
posted by darkstar at 1:22 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
So true, and not to be elided! Though their work had less to do with clerical work such as filing and other paperwork processing.
I’m laughing at myself, because when I wrote my follow-on edit comment, I actually wrote “and textile/garment workers” as a third traditionally women’s career out of the house, along with nursing and teaching, and then deleted it in favor of writing “etc.”. In retrospect, that was a poor editorial choice, because women’s involvement in the garment industry and their organizing efforts, particularly in the early 1900s, can’t be overstated.
posted by darkstar at 1:22 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
There's a reason why chaotic tendencies and the ability to breathe fire are not typically part of an effective document handling strategy.
OMG howfar that is inspired!
posted by darkstar at 1:26 PM on May 16, 2021
OMG howfar that is inspired!
posted by darkstar at 1:26 PM on May 16, 2021
WWI is also overstated in your comments, women were significantly (not majority but not triviallly) represented in clerical jobs throughout the growth of office workplaces in the late 19th C.
See various sections of https://www.officemuseum.com/office_gender.htm for a breakdown.
posted by ead at 1:28 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
See various sections of https://www.officemuseum.com/office_gender.htm for a breakdown.
posted by ead at 1:28 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
That’s a good point. If I had a chance to re-draft that comment, I’d definitely soften the language to note that there were definitely trends in women employment in these sectors that preceded the large spikes resulting from both WWI and WWII.
posted by darkstar at 1:35 PM on May 16, 2021
posted by darkstar at 1:35 PM on May 16, 2021
How annoyingly difficult to compare the US and UK female-clerical numbers in that page -- I've just seen a claim somewhere that the US accepted more female clerical workers during the US Civil War when more men were out of the labor force. Lots of excellent three-sentence cases of women's changing roles within specific US government offices (of course women copyists originally did their work at home! How plausible that if you need steady scissor-using hands to cut apart paper bill money you'd look for women! How blithe the comments "women do the work better and we can pay them less"!)
----
On a different tack with the original article, I'd like more about the technical development and decline of the file cabinet, not just the advertising imagery. I spent some time in a hundred-year-old university building with an array of reused office equipment, and it was AMAZING how much better the WWII filing cabinets were even than the 1960s-ish ones. I think they might even have been the same manufacturer. But they just worked better; smoother, quieter, less to catch the edges of the contents, would stay open when you meant them to be and then all the way closed with a nudge. The oak desk chairs of the same era were also superb, not least because they demanded the excellent posture that reduces RSIs.
posted by clew at 1:44 PM on May 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
----
On a different tack with the original article, I'd like more about the technical development and decline of the file cabinet, not just the advertising imagery. I spent some time in a hundred-year-old university building with an array of reused office equipment, and it was AMAZING how much better the WWII filing cabinets were even than the 1960s-ish ones. I think they might even have been the same manufacturer. But they just worked better; smoother, quieter, less to catch the edges of the contents, would stay open when you meant them to be and then all the way closed with a nudge. The oak desk chairs of the same era were also superb, not least because they demanded the excellent posture that reduces RSIs.
posted by clew at 1:44 PM on May 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
RE quality filing cabinets, totally agreed. This seems to be part of the broader decline in the sturdiness of manufactured goods over the past century. I used to have an office fan from the 1940s that was all metal and weighed a ton. But it was still working well, up until about 20 years ago. I could have paid to have it repaired, and retired for safety, but instead gave it to a friend and bought a replacement plastic fan that probably won’t last five years.
Speaking of those quality filing cabinets, I once had the opportunity to buy a beautiful wooden filing cabinet from the early 1900s. It was gorgeous, thick oak with brass handles, and the very idea of storing files in it made me salivate.
But I eventually opted against it for the same reason that tommasz mentioned above: I’ve been on a multi-year project to winnow down my filed papers. I now have it all condensed to two of the larger plastic filing boxes. Which take up less space and are actually easy to move when needed. Still, that filing cabinet was a work of art.
Which reminds me, I should probably go ahead and scan and shred those old medical and financial records from the 1990s.
posted by darkstar at 2:04 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
Speaking of those quality filing cabinets, I once had the opportunity to buy a beautiful wooden filing cabinet from the early 1900s. It was gorgeous, thick oak with brass handles, and the very idea of storing files in it made me salivate.
But I eventually opted against it for the same reason that tommasz mentioned above: I’ve been on a multi-year project to winnow down my filed papers. I now have it all condensed to two of the larger plastic filing boxes. Which take up less space and are actually easy to move when needed. Still, that filing cabinet was a work of art.
Which reminds me, I should probably go ahead and scan and shred those old medical and financial records from the 1990s.
posted by darkstar at 2:04 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
My late cat Mini once set about exploring a two-drawer file cabinet whose top drawer I left open before I went to work one day. When I got home I followed the yelling and extricated the cat from the smelly drawer; she left the mishap alive and well, but the file cabinet was never the same.
One of the many pleasures of 2010's film version of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is the amount of loving attention paid by production design to the office furnishings and technology of the early seventies. The methods of housing and guarding files are critical to the plot, which is all about Cold War spycraft, and the film makes that fascinating at least for some of us.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 3:59 PM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
One of the many pleasures of 2010's film version of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is the amount of loving attention paid by production design to the office furnishings and technology of the early seventies. The methods of housing and guarding files are critical to the plot, which is all about Cold War spycraft, and the film makes that fascinating at least for some of us.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 3:59 PM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
Nice article! My mother left me several crates of files, including typed copies of all her sermons. My child has several crates of paper ephemera stored in my basement. I have kept a handwritten journal for much of my life, as well as a boatload of my personal fiction and nonfiction writing and the field notes and analysis for my dissertation research.
A member of the generation of women who could only be secretaries, nurses, or teachers, I was a secretary for some time post college and through graduate school, and I developed the habit of storing all my paper neatly and alphabetically as a result, instead of mislaying it. It was very satisfying. And it was heavy and it loomed.
As part of my downsizing project since I semi-retired, I have been tackling all the accumulated paper over the last five years. There are so many documents that could be essential, and so many that represent the existence of people, times, and things that are now gone, that it took a long time to scan/shred/recycle most of it. I'm down to four file boxes that don't actually contain all that much any more.
posted by Peach at 5:00 PM on May 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
A member of the generation of women who could only be secretaries, nurses, or teachers, I was a secretary for some time post college and through graduate school, and I developed the habit of storing all my paper neatly and alphabetically as a result, instead of mislaying it. It was very satisfying. And it was heavy and it loomed.
As part of my downsizing project since I semi-retired, I have been tackling all the accumulated paper over the last five years. There are so many documents that could be essential, and so many that represent the existence of people, times, and things that are now gone, that it took a long time to scan/shred/recycle most of it. I'm down to four file boxes that don't actually contain all that much any more.
posted by Peach at 5:00 PM on May 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
At my work, each project folder on our file server has a standard tree ('client brief'/'tender contracts'/'subconsultants'/'authorities'/'reports') which is extremely extensive, strangely specific, and kind of annoying. It doesn't make a lot of sense with a strong search function. Each also has a number by year and subsequent numbers and dashes. And I discovered only several years after working here that it exactly mimics the older standard structure of project files, which were in manila folders with binders, filed on lengthy shelves; the external file numbers designed for looking down the shelf to find the file, the internal structure designed for thumb-navigation by tab. Filing cabinets haven't disappeared, they've just ascended to a higher plane.
(We still have a table with a big box of rubber stamps, and it still gets used.)
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:01 PM on May 16, 2021 [8 favorites]
(We still have a table with a big box of rubber stamps, and it still gets used.)
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:01 PM on May 16, 2021 [8 favorites]
Who needs filing cabinets? I was a fan of the old Analog Engineer, Bob Pease's method of handling huge (and I do mean huge) stacks of technical documents.
He had them in vertical piles in an X-Y orientation for the piles on any horizontal surface, including any free floor space in his cubicle. The Z axis was for the most recently used.
Of course you can only do that if you keep a running record (in his head) where everything was in the (many!) stacks.
My favorite story was:
One day a Sales guy came into his cube and asked if he had the new Data Sheet for one of their parts. Bob replied, "You're standing on it." :)
Couldn't find the story with a quick online check but this will give you an idea of his many (many...many...) stacks of paper.
https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/analogwire/posts/remembering-bob-pease
posted by aleph at 5:47 PM on May 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
He had them in vertical piles in an X-Y orientation for the piles on any horizontal surface, including any free floor space in his cubicle. The Z axis was for the most recently used.
Of course you can only do that if you keep a running record (in his head) where everything was in the (many!) stacks.
My favorite story was:
One day a Sales guy came into his cube and asked if he had the new Data Sheet for one of their parts. Bob replied, "You're standing on it." :)
Couldn't find the story with a quick online check but this will give you an idea of his many (many...many...) stacks of paper.
https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/analogwire/posts/remembering-bob-pease
posted by aleph at 5:47 PM on May 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
One day I'll find the ideal filing cabinet, but the search for it isn't the problem. The problem is determining exactly what I want to put in it. I don't really have any files, per se, just... papers.
Filing cabinets are also popular among the AM radio crowd, as MC Frontalot tells us.
posted by heteronym at 5:59 PM on May 16, 2021
Filing cabinets are also popular among the AM radio crowd, as MC Frontalot tells us.
posted by heteronym at 5:59 PM on May 16, 2021
My late father had his secretary print his emails out. He was if anything less sexist than the bulk of men of his time: in the 70s and 80s he was trying to get the science department at his institution up to 50% women, championed the development of nursing as an academic subject, and supported my out-there second wave 70s mother. What he told me was this: I have already have way more people trying to communicate with me than I can deal with. Betty's job is partly to fend those people off and figure out who I should be talking to. The last thing I need is a way to enable people to communicate with me more easily!
I have a beautiful rosewood filing cabinet in my study. It has family papers in it.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:59 PM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have a beautiful rosewood filing cabinet in my study. It has family papers in it.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:59 PM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I hate to draw attention to the previous American presidency, but for a moment of dark humour, at one photo op he had some stacks of paper file folders without labels on his desk... file folders without labels...
posted by ovvl at 6:15 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by ovvl at 6:15 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
Steelcase.
A brief tour of the Steelcase historical archives
posted by clavdivs at 6:38 PM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
A brief tour of the Steelcase historical archives
posted by clavdivs at 6:38 PM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I've worked several academic staff jobs over the years, and I am no longer surprised at the number of people who have called offices over the years to ask for things like:
-a decades-old syllabus
-a copy of an old term paper (not a thesis, just.. a paper for a class)
-records from internships
-etc etc...
Often these are for data over ten years old, sometimes up to 25 years old. And yes, universities have retention policies, but none of them mandate that we keep these items for 10+ years. And I think it has something to do with the psychological mystery of the file cabinet. People just assume that someone has kept these important papers, that surely they're in a file somewhere, because how could we just throw away information? But we do. We do it a lot.
posted by nakedmolerats at 7:04 PM on May 16, 2021 [12 favorites]
-a decades-old syllabus
-a copy of an old term paper (not a thesis, just.. a paper for a class)
-records from internships
-etc etc...
Often these are for data over ten years old, sometimes up to 25 years old. And yes, universities have retention policies, but none of them mandate that we keep these items for 10+ years. And I think it has something to do with the psychological mystery of the file cabinet. People just assume that someone has kept these important papers, that surely they're in a file somewhere, because how could we just throw away information? But we do. We do it a lot.
posted by nakedmolerats at 7:04 PM on May 16, 2021 [12 favorites]
The longer form book is on my summer to read list. His earlier work, The Passport in America is insightful; I highly recommend it.
posted by mfoight at 3:28 AM on May 17, 2021
posted by mfoight at 3:28 AM on May 17, 2021
It's amazing how much the furniture and accessories needed for office life have changed in my career. I used to have file cabinets, in and out trays, staplers, paper clips and tons of paper but now it's basically just my laptop.
posted by octothorpe at 6:09 AM on May 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 6:09 AM on May 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's amazing how much the furniture and accessories needed for office life have changed in my career. I used to have file cabinets, in and out trays, staplers, paper clips and tons of paper but now it's basically just my laptop.
posted by octothorpe at 9:09 AM on May 17
I have lived to see office-equipment empires Rise and Fall.
I was a young civil servant when my office bought a FAX machine. Thirty-some years later (just before lockdown, in fact...), my office finally THREW OUT the (now seldom-used) FAX machine.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 8:32 AM on May 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 9:09 AM on May 17
I have lived to see office-equipment empires Rise and Fall.
I was a young civil servant when my office bought a FAX machine. Thirty-some years later (just before lockdown, in fact...), my office finally THREW OUT the (now seldom-used) FAX machine.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 8:32 AM on May 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
Came here to mention the tower in Burlington VT, but see it's in TFA
Filing cabinets are also, generally, something you cannot give away today,...
Minutes after reading this, I came across this 'Seeking items' in our Front Porch Forum:
posted by MtDewd at 8:42 AM on May 17, 2021
Filing cabinets are also, generally, something you cannot give away today,...
Minutes after reading this, I came across this 'Seeking items' in our Front Porch Forum:
Hello! Posting on the odd chance that someone has a white/gray two-drawer metal office-style filing cabinet taking up space that you are looking to get rid of. Happy to pay reasonable price! Thank you!(emphasis mine)
posted by MtDewd at 8:42 AM on May 17, 2021
Often these are for data over ten years old, sometimes up to 25 years old. And yes, universities have retention policies, but none of them mandate that we keep these items for 10+ years. And I think it has something to do with the psychological mystery of the file cabinet. People just assume that someone has kept these important papers, that surely they're in a file somewhere, because how could we just throw away information? But we do. We do it a lot.
I throw out all of my class-related papers (student assignments, attendance sign-in sheets, etc.) after three years.
But I do recall my former academic advisor -- who was also the Chemistry Department Chair at the large state university I attended -- many years ago showing me one particular file folder from the front office filing cabinet. It had dozens of letters going back decades. He explained that it was for correspondence from community members who were sharing scientific theories that were "of special interest". The file was curated by whomever was the Department Chair and it was handed down from Chair to Chair as a sort of responsibility of the office.
I asked for an example and he took one out of the file that had been written about 20 years earlier in the early 1960s. In the letter, a helpful and very polite citizen scientist was sharing their theories about what made chemicals toxic to humans. The crux of the theory was that some molecules were "pointy" and this "pointiness" cut into human organs.
I recall that both of us managed not to smile as he read it.
As he gingerly put the letter back in the folder and replaced it in the filing cabinet, I asked him why the department kept these letters on file for so long. "Oh," he said, "you never know..."
posted by darkstar at 9:01 AM on May 17, 2021 [5 favorites]
I throw out all of my class-related papers (student assignments, attendance sign-in sheets, etc.) after three years.
But I do recall my former academic advisor -- who was also the Chemistry Department Chair at the large state university I attended -- many years ago showing me one particular file folder from the front office filing cabinet. It had dozens of letters going back decades. He explained that it was for correspondence from community members who were sharing scientific theories that were "of special interest". The file was curated by whomever was the Department Chair and it was handed down from Chair to Chair as a sort of responsibility of the office.
I asked for an example and he took one out of the file that had been written about 20 years earlier in the early 1960s. In the letter, a helpful and very polite citizen scientist was sharing their theories about what made chemicals toxic to humans. The crux of the theory was that some molecules were "pointy" and this "pointiness" cut into human organs.
I recall that both of us managed not to smile as he read it.
As he gingerly put the letter back in the folder and replaced it in the filing cabinet, I asked him why the department kept these letters on file for so long. "Oh," he said, "you never know..."
posted by darkstar at 9:01 AM on May 17, 2021 [5 favorites]
The problem is determining exactly what I want to put in it. I don't really have any files, per se, just... papers.
appliance manuals, warranties, tax documents -- everyone needs at least one small filing cabinet.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:01 AM on May 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
appliance manuals, warranties, tax documents -- everyone needs at least one small filing cabinet.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:01 AM on May 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
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posted by seanmpuckett at 8:50 AM on May 16, 2021 [17 favorites]