The Great Responsibility of the Tedious Task of Renaming Files

When one is presented with the task of renaming files for hours on end, it does not exactly encourage great enthusiasm. It is tedious and a bit mind-numbing if done without some kind of background noise. When I was presented with the task, I was surprised, but I considered it a chance to work on my computer skills which tend to be quite lacking. However, it did not take too long for me to get the hang of it. When asked by a professor how my internship was going, I responded that I was mostly renaming files, it was boring, but not difficult. Her response was, while it may seem that way, the renaming and organizing process is so helpful, to which I jokingly responded, that’s what they tell me.

Truth be told, while I understood what I was doing must be important, otherwise, why would I have been instructed to do it, I had not really thought too long or too hard about it. Why is renaming files so important? Well, the P.R.I.N.T. Project is working on sorting through anywhere between 2,700 to 3,000 documents from several different databases that all have their own filing system, that are drastically different. The databases are from several different countries and the documents were archived at various points in history. The documents also come in several different languages and dialects which can add to the complication. Together the documents have the potential to show a fantastic story of the lives and migration of religious minorities throughout Europe and North America across the span of about 100 years. It also offers insight into the lives of the mundane, a much-overlooked part of history

However, with the documents as all over the place as they are, it can be hard to make sense of it all. Plus, before these stories can be looked into on a deeper level, they have to be translated into a consistent language, and before that can thoroughly be done, they have to be consistently cataloged and easy to find so that those doing the translations and writing the official narratives understand what they’re looking at and so it is easy for those in the future to find a document that they had previously looked at. I mean realistically how easy is it to stumble across the same letter twice when there are almost 3,000 documents to choose from. 

If documents or any artifact are left to chaos, the chances of them being lost to time greatly increase. So, while renaming files isn’t considered prestigious or adventurous, it ultimately helps lay the foundation for all future researchers so that they can easily access thousands of documents without the extensive training or familiarity needed by those who currently utilize these sources.