The Rural Voice, 1987-11, Page 56Make every dollar of investment work —
and work hard} Zetor invites you to com-
pare model for model, feature for feature
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tI:
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R.R. 1, Ayton 519-799-5584
Chatsworth 519-794-2181
Scone Service Centre
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SALES &
• Radials
• Rice tires
• Reg. tractor tires
• Truck tires
• Automotive tires
All makes in stock
ON FARM SERVICE
Willits
Tire Service
Lucknow
519-528-2103
54 THE RURAL VOICE
RURAL HERITAGE
ORGANIZING YOUR FILES:
HELP FOR THE PACKRAT
If you are a household packrat when
it comes to local history, you will know
all about the joys of finding things when
you want them and the agonies of rum-
maging unsuccessfully for hours with-
out them.
Some "clippers" and savers of stuff
paste everything into scrapbooks. But it
doesn't take long to build up a stack of
15 books, and unless there is an index for
them it can take ages to find what you
want.
Then there are those who just never
get around to the business of scrap-
books. They keep on saving and saving
and never, it seems, can find what they
want. They shove stuff into envelopes
or shopping bags or between the pages
of books or under the bed in boxes.
Some say that collecting is a man-made
disease.
The hunt-till-you-fmd-it system is a
waste of time. But there is a way to sort
all that stuff.
Sorting isn't a new invention;
scholars and civil servants have devised
dozens of schemes over the centuries to
retrieve information buried in libraries
and storerooms. Anyone familiar with
public libraries has encountered the
Dewey Decimal System or the Library
of Congress cataloguing numbers. Sup-
plementing these systems are the ac-
cepted subject headings placed at the
tops of library file cards found in banks
of drawers.
What the neighbourhood packrat
needs are tailor-made subject headings
to put onto file folders, and three boxes
(or three drawers) to keep the files in.
The three boxes are necessary to
separate the pile three ways: one for
people, one for buildings, and one for
subjects (everything else).
People Files
Begin by having a file folder for
everything about your own family and
one folder for each other family you
think is deserving. For other people,
create a set of 26 file folders, one for
each letter of the alphabet, in which to
file things about them by surname.
If you wish to keep all weddings
separate, you will need a set of 26 addi-
tional folders, and if you wish to keep all
obituaries separate you will need a set
for them too.
Now you may wonder what all this
will cost. Think of it instead as an
investment in your hobby. Imagine, no
more clutter!
Buildings Files
Pictures and articles about buildings
are best filed away by geographic loca-
tion (or municipality). Set up a file for
each town or village and one for each
township. If necessary, these can be
expanded by having files for different
streets or one for each concession of a
township.
Subject Files
Now the fun begins. There is a secret
or principle which, when understood,
will assure that the headings on the file
folders will help you find what you
want.
There are two cardinal rules. Rule
one: you must identify the event or
organization or person who caused the
clipping to appear in the press. Pretty
soon you may discover that all the
clippings about the seed show, the fall
fair, the horse show, the fall fair queen,
and the farm machinery show were
brought about by the same organization
— the agricultural society. Therefore,
place them all into the same file folder
titled "agricultural society." Once you
catch on to this principle, things become
simpler.
Rule two: without fail, write a date
on every clipping and also the name of
the publication it came from. Without
these annotations, clippings are prac-
tically useless.
Headings
The last thing to master is the system
behind the titles you place on the file
folders. That subject will be addressed
in a later column.0
James Anderson
Stratford Perth Archives