If you’ve never started a business, worked in data or library sciences, or generally been tasked to manage data, chances are you’ve never even had to think about archiving, nor the processes for how to do so. I too hadn’t given it close to any thought just two years ago. But land yourself in a position where you do have to learn the word, like I did, and a whole plethora of concerns and priorities suddenly begin to seem extremely important.

At Ooligan Press, one of the main tools we use for collaborative work is Google Drive. For each manuscript that we acquire, a new shared Google Drive needs to be created and the project manager and department leads (the design manager, the managing editor, the copy chief, the online content manager, and so on) need to be added to that Google Drive. Every school term, new members cycle in and out of the different project teams while the project manager remains the same for the full academic year. The new team members need to be added as well to the Google Drives.

Ooligan Press is around twenty years old, and for those twenty years, we’ve been publishing roughly four books a year. Twenty times four equals eighty books, and when one recalls that the process of publishing produces tipsheets, blurb requests, review requests, collateral, developmental edits, copyedits, EPUB files, author questionnaires, book covers, book jackets errata documents, and perhaps audiobook files, among many other documents—it becomes clear how many, many files and digital products come into existence. Many of said products need to be archived, placed into their own separate, shared Google Drive; not just for the sake of intellectual history, but also for the purpose of possibly reprinting endeavors, or transferral of the rights back to the author. Amid all this, what has just recently become clear to me is how difficult it actually is to consistently and cleanly archive our materials.

Before becoming the operations manager at Ooligan Press, I had never thought about any potential archiving challenges. It seemed simple enough to move folders and documents into another folder. However, I didn’t take into account how difficult it is to institute and keep a naming convention, and how essential naming conventions are. When trying to find a specific EPUB file for example, very quickly, twenty folders titled “digital” spring up when searching for a folder. A somewhat recent change was to input an acronym, like PNDG for The Pacific Northwest Disaster Guide, in front of each folder. At the time of this writing, we are also adding the ISBN numbers into our naming convention, hopefully helping in the searchability of documents.

As a student-run press, the process for archiving materials is ever-evolving. The shuffle of new students coming in and out every year presents its own challenges with training new managers and making sure our solutions remain consistent and in place. The situation now, as imperfect as it is, is still a vast improvement to the system we had in place ten years ago. So here’s to hoping the next ten years show even more productive evolution.