We recognise that these two (or more) systems are distinct and separate, and assign each of them a ‘system identifier’ before
AC.ID.
(from: 13.11 Multiple Systems)
But what if the systems are not totally distinct?
Let me tell you about my situation first and how I try to solve it afterwards.
I am a librarian, by trade and by heart. I work at a university library and I love what I do. So much so, that I:
- write papers and hold presentations on librarianship,
- attend conferences even in my free time,
- volunteer in two different library associations (which also includes attending certain conferences and events), and
- accepted a teaching assignment on research data management (which is a library topic), as a side job.
All the non-work activities are sanctioned by my employer and I often visit association events as business trips (the expenses usually get covered by the association, but I still need - and get -permission to be absent from work).
The culmination of this mix-up between paid job, academic work and hobby is an upcoming library conference: Me and all my coworkers are allowed to attend as a business trip, as it is a great opportunity to network with publishers and other librarians and learn new things. I will attend in all my functions: I will talk to many people in my professional role, but I have also stuff to do there for both of my voluntary positions, and lastly I will also give a talk that isn’t particularly related to anything else.
The idea between multiple JD-systems is that they are distinct: One Life Admin System, another system for the stuff at work.
But you understand why that doesn’t work out for me. I don’t want my volunteer work to be part of my work system because if I ever change jobs, I intend to maintain the volunteer positions. Yet I need to apply for business trips every time I want to attend to an event of one of my associations. Therefore I can’t leave the voluntary work entirely out of the work system.
Now, that I’ve bored you with my workaholic biography, let me show you my system solution. It’s not perfect, but it seems to have worked well for me since the new year, so I’m pretty confident that it isn’t terrible.
Felix.Decimal
├── FEL.00 System Management // just the usual meta
├── FEL.10 Life Admin System // the LAS, pretty much done by the book
├── FEL.20 Volunteer Work
│ ├── FEL.20 Area Management // just the usual meta
│ ├── FEL.21 Association A, Committee 1
│ │ ├── …
│ │ ├── FEL.21.21 Association A at the huge conference
│ │ └── …
│ ├── FEL.22 Association A, Committee 2
│ ├── … // room for future roles at Association A
│ └── FEL.25 Association B
│ ├── …
│ ├── FEL.25.21 Association B at the huge conference
│ └── …
├── FEL.30 Me as a lecturer
│ ├── FEL.30 Area Management // just the usual meta
│ └── FEL.31 My only lecturer job so far
│ ├── … // just the usual meta
│ ├── FEL.31.10 ◽️ Theoretical stuff that might be useful over multiple years
│ ├── FEL.31.11 Conceptualisation of my course
│ ├── FEL.31.20 ◽️ Academic years
│ ├── FEL.31.25 My course in 2025 // I skipped the 31.21 - 31.24 to be in sync with the years: FEL.31.25 for 2025
│ ├── FEL.31.26 My course in 2026
│ ├── … // enough space for another 23 years of this course
│ ├── FEL.31.50 ◽️ Theses where I'm the adviser
│ ├── FEL.31.51 The first thesis I get to advise
│ └── … // enough space for another 48 theses to advise
└── FEL.90 Creative Output
├── FEL.90 Area Management // just the usual meta
├── FEL.91 Written
│ ├── FEL.91001 The first written thing I published
│ ├── … // every publication idea, whether I go through with it or not
│ └── FEL.91xxx
├── FEL.92 Spoken // for spoken stuff, I want the date first because that's a super hard deadlinethat I want to see everytime I look at the thing
│ ├── FEL.92001 YYYY-MM-DD The first presentation I gave
│ ├── … // basically everything where I presented a powerpoint to an audience
│ └── FEL.92xxx YYYY-MM-DD
└── FEL.95 Me as a reviewer
├── FEL.95001 The first thing that I was asked to peer review
├── ...
└── FEL.95xxx
.
Work.Decimal
├── WRK.00 System Management // just the usual meta
├── WRK.10 Overarching Topics // here are all the business trips - among a lot of other things
├── WRK.20 Collections Management // roughly: buying books and throwing others away
├── WRK.30 Information Management // roughly: organising bought books so that users find them
├── WRK.40 Teaching Library // e.g. teaching freshmen how to use the catalogue (the presentation goes into FEL.92)
└── WRK.50 Additional Tasks
(Of course I didn’t list all the details. IDs are only included where I considered them useful examples for my structure. There are many more, especially in the Work System.)
If I hold a presentation for work, this also gets a FEL.92-ID because I hold the copyright to the presentation and I might want to reuse it at a later point.
There it is, highly esteemed JD forum. What do you think?
Cheers
Felix