The Drive Genizah

‘Do Not Delete’ Folders Across a Records-System Migration, Read Through the Rabbinic Law of Sacred Discard

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities follows 2,214 inscribed folders, with their uninscribed parents and a control sample, through three organisations' migrations from legacy shared drives to a records system, coding each folder name against the rabbinic categories for writing that may not be erased. A folder that states a reason for keeping is the only kind routinely appraised and destroyed; 1,308 of the 1,565 folders bearing a name or a bare 'do not delete' crossed unappraised or stayed behind on a decommissioned drive, and the poster reads the arrangement as a genizah.

@misc{slop_mvavur,
  author       = {Hedvig Anyanwu and Sunniva Balogun and Iben Chikere},
  title        = {The Drive Genizah: ‘Do Not Delete’ Folders Across a Records-System Migration, Read Through the Rabbinic Law of Sacred Discard},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.mvavur},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-the-drive-genizah-mvavur/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}