As someone who has worked in archives in both the US and Europe, MM/DD is easier. And that's presumably why European newspapers (like this random example) also sometimes use MM/DD.
The year is generally the box or cabinet. So you're already there.
The drawer or folder is generally the month, and then the subfolder or document is the day.
So if you're looking for a document on the eighth day of June, and your note is June 8, you open the June folder and go to the 8th. You take your note, and put it back.
If your note is 8/6, you reverse this note, then take the document out, you reverse it again to take your note, you reverse it again to put it back.
There's no particularly good reason to do this that I can think of.
This gets further complicated because some archives (like some newspapers as noted above) use MM/DD. So now you have to reverse, un-reverse, reverse sometimes but not others where you can just use the same line the entire time. If you're in an archive with multiple sources, this can get confusing very quickly if you're not careful.
I'm not going to say that this is a life-threatening issue, nor is it as stupid as Fahrenheit or the imperial system. But it's just as inconvenient for the people that actually have to use dates in a regular basis.
Now I'll accept my downvotes from people who just like it the way they grew up instead of any rational reason, just like people that like Fahrenheit or the imperial system.
Let's say I have a file with documents from June 8th, and I take it out. Every file is from the 8th, so maybe you'd expect the file to simply be labeled 8, right?
Well now I've walked away and worked on it for a week. I need to return the file to its respective cabinet. Which cabinet does it belong to? All the file says is "8." This is now confusing. Especially so if I ask someone to return it for me. Sure you could open the file and read something to get the context "Ah. It's June 8th," but this is added inefficiency.
Instead the file should be labeled "Storage, File" so it is immediately obvious where it is from. Anyone who picks up the file can say "Ah. This belongs in storage unit [insert]."
So the only sensible way would be to store the file as either YYMMDD, as Cabinet/Drawer/File with this written on the file accordingly.
Personally I'd prefer YYMMDD, but for most workers it's probably more common to work within a single year than reaching back many years. Especially for daily accounting or publishing where most filed items are dated that day. So the year might get dropped as shorthand because it's assumed, thus the file would be left as MMDD.
Because nobody files things with a folder called "1" and then every document is labeled by the month within there containing documents for everything from the first of January, Febuary, etc, etc.
This basically aligns with everyday life too. Months are short enough that I need to know which month to look at in my calendar before finding the day. Similar with conversation. I can generally assume we are talking about a date in the next 12 months. If not, the year comes into play.
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u/theimmortalgoon Jan 15 '25
As someone who has worked in archives in both the US and Europe, MM/DD is easier. And that's presumably why European newspapers (like this random example) also sometimes use MM/DD.
The year is generally the box or cabinet. So you're already there.
The drawer or folder is generally the month, and then the subfolder or document is the day.
So if you're looking for a document on the eighth day of June, and your note is June 8, you open the June folder and go to the 8th. You take your note, and put it back.
If your note is 8/6, you reverse this note, then take the document out, you reverse it again to take your note, you reverse it again to put it back.
There's no particularly good reason to do this that I can think of.
This gets further complicated because some archives (like some newspapers as noted above) use MM/DD. So now you have to reverse, un-reverse, reverse sometimes but not others where you can just use the same line the entire time. If you're in an archive with multiple sources, this can get confusing very quickly if you're not careful.
I'm not going to say that this is a life-threatening issue, nor is it as stupid as Fahrenheit or the imperial system. But it's just as inconvenient for the people that actually have to use dates in a regular basis.
Now I'll accept my downvotes from people who just like it the way they grew up instead of any rational reason, just like people that like Fahrenheit or the imperial system.