Files are and have always been relational objects

"The original 'files' were threads upon which documents were strung chronologically for preservation."

There never has been a notion of a file existing without a relationship to other information. A paper is just a paper until a relationship is established with others, and it becomes a file.

I was delighted to see this in action in the recent papal thriller Conclave, which showed the cardinals’ votes for the next pope being counted, strung on a red thread with a needle, and then burned in the stove to create the white or black smoke that announces the result of that day’s voting. It makes sense that this specific information technology would have persisted in a process that’s been largely stable since the 11th century.¹ ⊕ ¹ Interestingly, the practice of burning the ballots and making an announcement via the color of the smoke only dates from the early 19th century. It seems extremely unlikely that the threading process also began then, when this was already out of use, replaced by pigeonholes, which you can also see in the movie. It’s a sort of information technology living fossil.

References

Yates, JoAnne. “From Press Book and Pigeonhole to Vertical Filing: Revolution in Storage and Access Systems for Correspondence.” The Journal of Business Communication (1973), vol. 19, no. 3, July 1982, pp. 5–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/002194368201900301.