Finally Friday has come around after a long week. Only 2 hours to go and your life is your own again. The phone rings and it’s the Department Head. He/she wants the report that we did last time to take to a meeting at 5pm. You know we have it and you know it’s been filed away. Fine, however, now you have to find it.

Whether it’s paper or electronic you can bet it’ll be buried deep in a compactus, filing cabinet, or somewhere on the shared drive. This promises to be a challenging next 2 hours. Like every other government department you have files with meaningful titles such as ‘General Correspondence’ or ‘Administration’, each of which are capable of covering a multitude of sins. The great thing about these ‘bag’ files is that it makes the whole filing process so much easier. It always saves so much time when you have to file something if you can just throw it on one of these little beauties. However, as you’re now about to discover, it makes the whole process of retrieving information a whole lot harder. That 5pm drinks after work is now looking doubtful. Frantically, you’re on the phone to the Records Section looking for help, they have narrowed your search down to about 132 possibilities, and that’s if it was filed in the first place. At about 200 folios each, you’ve probably got more chance of winning the lottery than you do of finding ‘that’ report by 4.59pm.

This example raises the issue of record titling. Whether it’s a file or a document in the sub folder of a sub folder of a folder creatively called ‘Admin 2004’, you’re never going to find it unless it’s been given a meaningful title. To be accountable, records have to be firstly retrievable, secondly retained for the appropriate period of time, and finally destroyed when appropriate. However, without digressing on the life-cycle of records, records have to be in the context of some sort of structure if they’re to have any meaning. Most of us have some sort of system that is subject based and it works just fine, which is great for all intents and purposes. Isn’t it a pity that there are just so many subjects out there? Where will it all end? Well someone, somewhere came up with a solution. Rather than using a subject based system, they came up with a function / activity based system. You may have heard of, and certainly will hear of, something called a Business Classification Scheme (BSC). So what exactly is it?

A Business Classification Scheme is created to suit whatever it is that your department / organisation does. To build one, for want of a better word, think of what it is that your organisation does. At the risk of being almost barbaric, you’ll be able to break down everything that your organisation does into a number of set functions. Let’s use the examples of Personnel, Finance, Building Maintenance, Fleet Maintenance, etc. These will be common across the board in most organisations and generally referred to as housekeeping functions. The BCS is the basis of a Thesaurus by which you can then use an ordered structure for titling files.

The National Archives of Australia has created the Administrative Function Disposal Authority (AFDA). It covers 17 ‘housekeeping’ functions that every organisation would carry out. Under each function are activities that are related to that function. For example, under the Personnel function you’d find activities such as Employment Conditions, Grievances, Leave, Recruitment, etc. So if you were recruiting for a vacant position, the file would be titled PERSONNEL – Recruitment – Clerical Officer Class 3, Position No 1234. By adopting the functions listed in the AFDA all these housekeeping functions are covered.

Okay, so now we’ve covered the every day mundane functions. However, what about the core activities of your department / organisation. Say we’re a university, we’d obviously have students, and so we’d have a thesaurus which would include student administration. Under the function of Student Administration we’d have activities such as Enrolments, Appeals, Awards, etc, basically every function performed by a tertiary institution would be covered by its specific function. Once you’ve created a thesaurus covering all the Function / Activity sets performed by your organisation, you have the basic functionality of a thesaurus.

For thesaurus to work in reality, as opposed to being something theoretical, it needs to be created as part of a consultative process. In other words, those who are to use it on a daily basis need to have input. The concept of Function / Activity based classification is quite a departure from subject based classification. People need to feel some familiarity with it if they’re to use it effectively. Once it is in place, however, it provides clarity in titling and makes the whole filing nightmare much easier. Perhaps you’ll make that 5pm rendezvous after all if you have a thesaurus.

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