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diverse. In some offices papers once filed are laid away permanently, and it is rare that occasion arises when they need be consulted; in others the files are consulted daily and with great frequency. It is obvious that a system which would meet the needs of one office might be quite inadequate for another.

The most difficult problem, perhaps, in regard to filing systems is to what extent those systems shall be supported by subsidiary indexes or devices to provide information which is called for but rarely, and to what extent means shall be provided for finding correspondence and documents where the request for the same is accompanied with meager information, such as the date of the communication or the name of the writer only.

At one end of the scale is a filing system by subjects only with no supporting indexes and no cross references; at the other a system with subsidiary indexes to provide against every possible contingency which a vivid imagination may conceive as being possible. The needs of an office and the probabilities of unusual demands vary greatly, according to the functions of the office and its relations with the public or other governmental offices. A loose system of filing correspondence is not advocated nor, on the other hand, one which shall provide for contingencies which may arise once in a lifetime. The commission believes in a system which will provide against those contingencies which may reasonably be expected to occur, and its efforts in developing methods will be guided by that principle.

WORK OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEES.

After the existing facts upon the subject had been ascertained, it was considered desirable, in developing ideas looking to the simplification and systematizing of methods, to ascertain by personal visits in each bureau and division of the service not only the general functions of the office but its needs from the filing standpoint. The employees of the commission to whom had been assigned the work could not make such personal visits except at the expense of a great amount of time. Furthermore, it is the expressed policy of the commission that, so far as may be possible, economical and more efficient methods shall be devised in cooperation with officers and employees in the several departments. In pursuance of this policy it was decided that the best means of securing such cooperation would be through special committees operating simultaneously in each department. These special committees consist of five persons each, three from the department, and two members of the staff of the commission. The committees are now actively at work in the following departments: Treasury, Navy, Post Office, Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce and Labor.

CONSIDERATIONS UNDERLYING RECOMMENDATIONS MADE.

While giving full recognition to the variety of business in different departments, with the resultant necessity that the methods of conducting such business be different, the commission believes in uniformity of practice where the conditions are alike, and that a systematic and economical handling of the correspondence of the executive departments necessarily rests upon certain general prin

ciples, which have already been stated on page 7 of this report. The considerations which guided the commission in reaching its conclusions are set forth in the following pages.

VERTICAL FLAT FILING.

Many of the documents and communications in the Government files are folded to a size approximately 34 by 8 inches and placed in document files instead of being filed unfolded or folded to a size approximately 9 by 11 inches. In railroad and industrial concerns it is extremely rare that papers in the files are folded. The almost universal custom is to file correspondence and documents flat. Following the trend in commercial concerns, many offices of the Government have within recent years changed their method of filing from folded to flat, but quite a large number of the offices still maintain folded or "document" files.

BRIEFING.

The purpose of briefing communications on the back is to facilitate their identification when folded and filed in a document file. With the adoption of flat filing the purpose of the brief will be removed. Monetary saving possible. If briefing were abolished in all the executive departments, as it has been in some of the departments, the saving in salaries alone would amount to $88,524.12 per annum. This figure is taken from the reports submitted by the departments. For the portion of their time engaged in briefing, the salaries of employees amounted to the figure given.

SUBJECTIVE CLASSIFICATION OF CORRESPONDENCE.

Out of over 250 filing systems in the executive departments embraced by the inquiry but few can be described as scientific or logical classifications. Most of the files are not classified at all save in the broadest manner. In the absence of scientific models on which to base a system, file clerks have had to devise a method of classifying or arranging correspondence to suit local requirements.

The usual system found in Government offices is nothing more than a numerical finding method. Under this plan all the letters or cases received are numbered under one immense sequence of progressive numbers, each new file receiving the number after the last file. It insures considerable ease in the finding of a given letter provided the file number is known and presents the economic advantage of requiring filing space to be reserved only at one place the end of the sequence. In some offices a variation of this plan is had, the principal difference being that the correspondence is broken up into several broad classes or divisions, in each of which the letters are arranged in a separate series of progressive numbers in the order of their receipt. In connection with these systems a book register or card index is usually employed, by means of which the location of correspondence is ascertained. The book registers are giving place to the more elastic card index, but the correspondence itself continues to be filed according to the arbitrary plan of numbering. While the card-index system is a distinct advance over former methods, it is not a filing system at

all. It merely enables the file clerk to get hold of particular letters, but it does not gather together papers on the different branches of a subject. If all papers bearing upon a matter are desired, they must be searched for under various heads in the card index and extracted from a large number of jackets; and there is every reason to believe that only a portion of the papers desired can ever be obtained. Papers on identically the same subject are widely separated in the files, because the momentary consideration allotted them results in different decisions as to their proper place. The danger of burying papers in unsuspected localities results in laborious cross carding, instead of striking at the real root of the evil-the method of filing the papers.

Although a filing system may possess the most complete of subject indexes, it can not be considered in perfect order without classification of the papers in the file itself.

The modern system of filing correspondence is, in fact, the application of the card-index principle to the filing of letters. It is surprising to find in how many offices of the Government where vertical filing is employed that there is but little conception of its possibilities. An alphabetic or numeric system of arranging folders is frequently regarded as all that can be done, although, as a matter of fact, the possibilities of the system are as broad and comprehensive as those of the card-index system. There is no reason why correspondence may not be sectionalized and classified just as satisfactorily as the cards in the card drawer. While the system in some of its ramifications can be made very complex, it is only necessary to learn the few simple particulars that lie at the basis of the system to work a classification of the correspondence itself as well as of the cards in the index.

THE DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION.

The subject of classification in its broad sense has attracted the notice of scholars and practical men alike, in respect of its application to knowledge, for several hundred years, but it was not until the nineteenth century that schemes of systematic library classification came into use, and it is only within the past 10 years that consideration has been given to the classification of correspondence.

In several railroad and industrial corporations, as well as in a few offices of the Government, a subjective classification of correspondence based upon the Dewey decimal system of library classification has been placed in successful operation. This system, which is the most extensively used of all schemes of systematic library classification, was devised in 1873 by Melvil Dewey. His method divides human knowledge into 10 classes, to which numbers are assigned as follows: 0. General works.

1. Philosophy.

2. Religion.
3. Sociology.
4. Theology.

5. Natural science.

6. Useful arts.

7. Fine arts.

8. Literature.
9. History.

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Each of the above classes is divided into 10 divisions, and each division into 10 sections. The books are arranged on the shelves in simple numerical order, all class numbers being decimal. Since each subject has a definite number, all books on any subject must stand together.

Applying this system to the correspondence of a telephone company, for example, we have the following as examples of the main classes:

000 General.

100 Executive.

200 Finance and accounts.

300 Construction.

400 Equipment.

500 Operation.
600 Rates.

Each of the above general classes is susceptible of further subdivision by the employment of additional digits. For example, the heading "300 Construction" is subdivided as follows:

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310.1 Purchase of property.

310.2

310.3

Construction of new buildings.
Maintenance of real estate.

And No. 310.2 is subdivided as follows:

310.2 Construction of new buildings.

310.21

310.22

310.23

Plans and specifications.
Contracts for new buildings.
Interior appointments.

No. 310.23 has these subdivisions:

310.23 Interior appointments.

310.231

310.232

310.233

Furnishing.

Heating plant.

Lighting.

And No. 310.233 is subdivided into:

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The process can be continued ad infinitum regardless of the diversity of the subjects or minutiae of detail involved.

The advantages of the decimal system as applied to correspondence files are:

1. It can be applied with ease to the most varied subjects, and the most minute details can be classified by a few figures which represent their relationship and show their dependence upon or subordination to one another.

2. When any new topic arises, it is always closely related to some other existing head and connecting it with the nearest head by adding a decimal place makes abundant room for the newcomer. The system is thus capable of unlimited expansion and can never break down for lack of room for growth.

3. Not only are all papers on one subject found together, but the most nearly allied subjects precede and follow, they in turn being preceded and followed by other allied subjects as far as practicable.

4. Correspondence on allied subjects is sure to be separated sooner or later in every file arranged on the common plan unless it be frequently rearranged and reindexed, and the great amount of labor involved renders it impracticable and very undesirable.

5. The numbers tell of each letter or file of correspondence both what it is and where it is.

6. While the total file numbers used may be quite large, as a matter of fact a file arranged upon the decimal system may be said to consist of but 10 numbers, namely, zero to 9, inclusive; the other numbers being subdivisions of these 10 general heads for the convenience of the file clerk in placing the papers in the file in a systematic manner so that they can be quickly located when wanted.

7. Correspondence can be readily located without reference to the subject index.

Monetary saving possible-While it is difficult to estimate the monetary saving which would be effected if the files in the offices of the executive departments were placed upon a subjective basis and followed the principles of classification above set forth, it is believed that the direct saving on this score would amount to not less than $200,000 a year, while the indirect saving from the standpoint of better organization of working materials would undoubtedly tend to increase that sum.

Subjective classification would in many instances, if the experience of railroad and commercial concerns is any guide, be followed by a discontinuance of a very large part of the recording and indexing of incoming and outgoing correspondence. The cost in the executive departments of this operation is $536,654.50 in salaries alone, and 8,000,000 cards and 800,000 pages of book records are filled annually. While it would be speculative to estimate the amount which would be saved by the introduction of a subject classification for the correspondence of the executive departments, so far as the operation of recording and indexing correspondence is concerned, this may be said: If the cost of recording and indexing correspondence in all the executive departments could be reduced so as to equal in ratio the expense sustained by the two most recently created departments, which for that reason may be assumed to have the most modern methods installed, the saving in this operation alone would amount to $200,000 per annum. It is pertinent to remark here that one department receiving but one-twentieth of the number of communications received in all the executive departments sustains 37 per cent. of the total expense of recording and indexing incoming correspondence.

REGISTERS OF CORRESPONDENCE.

Growing out of the imperfections of present filing systems, many offices have come to use what is known as the "record of correspond

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