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Developing Uniform File-Names
Since the collection had not been properly archived prior to
receiving the documents, we had to develop a way to link each
physical document to its digital counterpart. Documents had been
partially assessed in 2000 by a private appraisal company. During
that time, they assigned documents to general archival boxes based on
the spacecraft system with which they were aligned. Since there were
nine spacecraft systems, there were nine boxes devoted to individual
systems and one box for the original Apollo Operations Handbook and
other miscellaneous documents that defined the nomenclature of the
system blueprints and diagrams; also included was the appraiser’s
finding aid. The documents were crammed into the boxes without
much thought for organization, our first step in archiving was to place
documents in folders, respecting the physical context by keeping the
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original order in which they appear, as well as the intellectual context
by keeping groups of bound documents together. We then assigned
numbers to each folder, designated as f(x), and numbers to each
document, designated as d(x). For example, the very first document in
the Electrical Power Subsystem box would have the title assigned f1d1,
referring to its position in the group. The next challenge was to use
these document titles to create a conceptual bridge between the real
document and its digital counterpart while following the best practices
of digital file naming.