A method and apparatus are provided for managing changes to a directory of electronic documents. A custom directory is created and stored based on the contents of a master directory. The master directory comprises a taxonomy of categories. A plurality of electronic documents are classified in one or more of the categories. One or more mappings defines how the documents of categories of the master directory map to categories of the custom directory. Mappings may express merges or splits of categories. One or more judgments may be created and stored in the custom directory in association with documents in the categories of the custom directory. Each judgment expresses whether a document is in or not in a category, or locked out of all categories. Modifications to the master directory are automatically propagated to the custom directory, according to the mapping, but without overriding the judgments in the custom directory.