Cleaning Up Old Personal Knowbase Data Files (Part 1)

Does your old Personal Knowbase data file require a little maintenance or cleanup?

Personal Knowbase is stable and uses little hard drive space. You're unlikely to have problems if you just let old unused articles and keywords accumulate. But obsolete articles can clutter up and slow down search and query results. And, if you're a little obsessive about being organized, like me, they can irritate.

Do you have an old file?

I've used Personal Knowbase for over 28 years now. Not surprisingly, some of my oldest Knowbase files have gotten a bit cluttered. Inevitably, some articles and keywords become obsolete. Duplicate information sneaks in. Entry errors make data difficult to find later. Junk accumulates.

I don't regularly set aside time to tidy up old data files, but when I notice issues, I find a little basic maintenance worthwhile.

I recently did some maintenance on my old general reference Knowbase file. I use this file for snippets from the web and emails, for reference and ideas gleaned from reading, and for saving procedures and trouble-shooting checklists. Some of it was pretty outdated. Since it was a reference database, I had put information in, forgotten it, and not noticed what was outdated unless I was looking for it.

Below are some ideas for cleaning up a data file from my own experience. You don't need to try all items listed below, but you may find some useful.

1) Check for Unassigned Keywords

Old files can accumulate unnecessary keywords. For tips to locate and weed out keywords assigned to no articles or few articles, see our previous post on Checking for Unassigned Keywords.

In my cleaning, I found a keyword blackmail (no kidding) assigned to nothing. I have no memory what that was for. Not sure I want to know. I axed it.

2) Browse for Similar Keywords

Scan down your Index for keywords that are similar. If they're truly redundant, such as plurals, you may want to merge the keywords.

For example, I found the keywords CD and CD-ROM. I merged them.

I also found printer and printing. I checked their usage. I found that printing had been used for old information about professional printers (such as for brochures and business cards) and printer was for tips on computer printers (such as how to unjam a paper tray). But they had been used inconsistently, so I took a minute to re-assign a few articles for consistency.

3) Browse for Obsolete Keywords

While scanning your Index, watch for obsolete keywords. You may want to delete them or merge them into a currently relevant keyword.

For example, I found a keyword Y2K, which probably hasn't had anything assigned to it for about 26 years. I deleted it.

Remember Netscape? Or Lynx? I had these as keywords. The articles they were associated with still had some relevance, or I wanted them for archival purposes. So I just merged Netscape and Lynx into my keyword browser.

Obsolete keywords may also hint that you have information stored that is no longer useful. We'll talk about obsolete notes in item (7) in Part 2.

4) Browse for Meaningless Keywords

Browsing down my Index, I found a keyword software which was assigned to articles about specific software. There was another keyword software notes which was assigned to only one article which also already had software assigned. I don't know what I was originally thinking when I assigned software notes, but it no longer had any meaning, so I deleted it from the file.

In Part 2, we'll move on from cleaning up your keywords to doing maintenance with your articles and entire files.