Managing your Website Image Files – How to Reduce “Search and Find” Time by Nora McDougall-Collins

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As a cooperative or association dedicated to promoting the small wood businesses of your members, you will probably acquire hundreds or thousands of images, pdf’s, and other files. Your members will depend on you to have these resources organized and available immediately upon request. That means that you need some system for managing images and other files, but you may not have any training in the software or methods available. Here are some tips for you to be the amazingly, professional file manager they expect!

If you can afford expensive software, use a program like Adobe Bridge to manage your files. Adobe Bridge can do many things, such as show you what’s in your files by thumbnails, help you group your files, and manage your files in many other ways. However, Adobe Bridge cannot be purchased alone, but as part of an expensive software package. Also, for any other staff member to get to the image information, they will have to have Bridge too. So, whether you use image management software or not, here are some other ways you can manage your file libraries.

First: Do it NOW
If you already have hundreds or thousands of files, you – and your staff - have probably wasted a lot of time looking through the files, every single time you need something. Each of those minutes and hours could have been spent paying someone to organize those files. This is a job that can be done by an intern or a high school employee. Always try to minimize jobs you have to do over and over with one time expenses of organizing.

Second: WRITE a Category Plan and Naming Conventions
Your organization has some type of logical system that can be put into categories. You can categorize by members, projects, products, types of products, type of file, etc. Choose some logical organization of categories that can also flow to the organization of your website. The main thing is that you can’t organize the files or your website, until you decide what your categories and subcategories are.

Besides planning folders to store your files, you need to plan how you will name your files; so that even someone new to your organization can scan the list quickly and find the files they need. Remember that the reason you are doing all this is to reduce repetitious Search and Find time*.

File names should quickly and intuitively tell someone what the content of the file is. So, each file name should include location, people and what’s happening type of information. You should set some rules as to which item comes first. A file name like, ManMakingChair.jpg is not as helpful as GeorgeSmithBuildingRockingChairVermont.jpg. Besides making it easier to find the file internally, Google images and other programs can increase the visibility of your site by the names of your files.

Third: Make a Storage Plan
Don’t make a single folder to organize your files, until you decide where all your resources will be stored. A bunch of CD’s dumped in a drawer won’t do it! A thumb drive won’t do it. Four possibilities are 1) a specific computer that doesn’t get much use, 2) an external hard drive – buy one, if you need to – you can get one for under $100.00, 3) on your webserver in a password protected folder, 4) an online file storage service. Actually, you should use two of these to protect yourself, in case one goes down.

Fourth: Set up a Spreadsheet (or other digital system) to keep track of your Files
Even if all your files are well-named and in well-named folders, it could take someone more time than necessary to open all the folders looking for the file they want. It is possible to set your computer to show the contents of a folder in thumbnails, but you still have to open the folders to see the thumbnails. If you create a spreadsheet and list each filename, location, keywords, caption, etc in the file, you have a low tech version of what Bridge and similar programs do for you. Spreadsheets are searchable; so the user can do a find on a particular word and see what is available in the spreadsheet.

Fifth: Make Folders and Copy Files into Them
Take your time. You don’t have to do all this in one day. In fact, you could devote ½ hour each day to work on it and continue with your regular work the rest of each day. Or, you could make it the special project of an intern. Somehow, this seems to be a task that people plan to do and never get around to!

Sixth: Make Sure that Everyone Follows the Naming and Saving Rules
The value of a system lies in everyone understanding and following the system. All it take is one person organizing their own way, instead of by the plan, to increase everyone’s Search and Find time. Your system may become outdated and need revised, but that should be decided by a manager or the group, not ad hoc.

*Interesting Note:
The “Search and Find” idea in this article came from Frank and Lilian Gilbreth’s motion studies and the book “Cheaper by the Dozen.”

A therblig is the name for one of a set of fundamental motions required for a worker to perform a manual operation or task. The set consists of 18 elements, each describing a standardized activity. These are listed below.

Members of NNFP have access to a variety of services to help you get the most from your existing web site or to help you develop a site that meets your business or organization's goals. Cost sharing is available on the price of your services. Besides our scheduled times, your group can schedule a private webinar for your members. For more information, contact Nora McDougall-Collins at 740-856-1529 or nora@nnfp.org