Rethinking Formal knowledge and its practices in the organization: The British Treasury's registry between 1900 and 1950

Abstract

The organization of registries emerged in the First World War to become a persistent problem in the British Civil Service. Registry services and control of information and records were the key issues. The Treasury's re-organizations beginning in 1919 and continuing into the 1960s, and subsequent changes in its registry in 1920, 1928, 1938, and 1944, highlight contemporary concerns for efficiency and better control over information and practices. Despite lip service to the importance of official knowledge in records, models were imperfectly implemented. By 1950, official records were only a small part of the Treasury's recorded communications and the ideal model of a central registry service was giving way to local applications in sub-registries serving functional communities. Registries were as much social practices as the were rule-guided systems for information artefacts.