Let me start at the beginning…
I wanted to do an inventory of my work so far – see my journey. To do this I went through my blog posts, bits of longer writing, mind maps, and all the bits and bobs on my website. I noted them all down on a post it and sorted them into five categories: the big idea/overall concept, development of stuff, development of space, historical maintenance, and background maintenance. Super proud of myself, I thought that I finally had the basic idea for my PhD by practice; an archive in various different forms (digital and analogue) with some lovely categories that people can look through.
Two weeks later I go through my “archive” because I need to write a summary of my first year. I start going through my post its and concluded that everything is in the wrong place…
*sigh*
CATEGORIES NEVER WORK! People always change their mind or are looking for something different. Tagging is therefore the only option. They are flexible and very easy to word search.
( how to make it analogue is not easy but is an interesting thought experiment )
💡💡💡💡💡💡💡💡💡💡💡💡💡💡💡💡💡💡
Here is an idea…
Instead of having an archive where there is detailed cataloguing done by one archivist, all we do is give items a code, a date of entrance into archive, and a brief description of archive item. No need to catalogue in a specific spot.
Then all people need to do is word search the archive and whenever people bring up an item, they are invited to add their own description, increasing the word search capabilities.
Like URBAN DICTIONARY