20 years in the life of a long-term empirical personal electronic filing study

This paper reports on the first 20 years of an empirical study of electronic support for filing and retrieving hardcopy documents and electronic files. A set of requirements for the ideal personal electronic filing system is documented, and the architecture of the system that is in use in the study is described. Sixty key questions associated with this topic are listed together with a summary of the answers found to date for each one. The paper concludes that electronic filing is feasible and effective, that the potential longevity of such systems introduces new challenges, and that it is time to start exploring how an electronic filing system can be used to support the acquisition, development and creation of knowledge.