About Foolscap
Notes on why this journal exists, who writes it, and how we handle the archive we write about.
Editorial mission
Foolscap started as a set of shared notes between a few people who kept ending up in the same conversation: standing in front of a closet, a filing cabinet, or a garage shelf, trying to decide whether a document was worth keeping and, if so, where it should live.
We write about the unglamorous middle of home organization — not the day you buy the folders, and not the day you finally throw everything away, but the years in between where a system either holds up or quietly falls apart. Every entry is grounded in something one of us actually tried on our own shelves: a numbering scheme, a box that never got sorted, a folder that outlived its usefulness. We would rather publish twelve honest entries a year than fifty generic ones.
What we don't do
Foolscap does not sell storage products, folders, boxes, or any physical goods. We are not affiliated with a records management company, a library, or a self-storage brand. Where we mention our own companion app, Boxlist, we say so plainly and link to a dedicated page rather than folding it into editorial content.
The team
Nora Aldeen
Founding Editor
Spent a decade reorganizing a family archive that had been filed by whoever was closest to the cabinet that year. Writes most of the method pieces.
Priya Vantel
Contributing Archivist
Background in institutional records management, now applies the same principles at a much smaller, much messier household scale.
Marcus Idehen
Copy Editor
Reads every entry twice before it goes up, mostly to make sure nobody has invented a rule that only applies to their own closet.
Content policy
Entries on Foolscap reflect the personal experience and opinions of the person who wrote them. We do not present numbers, dates, or claims as verified fact when they are estimates or general tendencies — we say "tends to" or "some households find" rather than stating something as settled. We correct errors when readers point them out, and we note the correction rather than silently editing the page.
We do not accept sponsored placements disguised as editorial entries. If an entry ever mentions a specific product by name, it will be marked clearly as such.
Contact
Corrections, questions, or a shelf story of your own: hello@foolscap.shop