Personal Digital Archiving

Best Practices for Personal Digital Archiving

Annotations by Elizabeth Downie

Definition of Project

In this annotated bibliography best practices for managing one’s personal digital content will be explored. Digital estate planning, personal digital archiving, as well as preserving photographs, emails, social media, audio recordings, and other personal data will also be covered. The bibliography will explore how to approach data that is on storage media, such as a USB drives, or saved to hardware such as cell phones, computers, or other digital devices. Because best practices change so quickly, this bibliography will focus on literature from 2015-present. It will focus mainly on managing one’s own information, rather than how a library would organize someone else’s personal data. Studies, surveys, instructions, current practices, and the monetization history of personal data management will be presented.

Keywords for searching: Digital Estate Planning, Personal Digital Archiving (PDA), Personal Information Management (PIM), Digital Heritage, Digital Afterlife, Archiving Practices

Annotations

Alagna, L. (2017). Archiving content from mobile devices: Challenges and strategies. Society of American Archivists Campus Case Studies (Case Study 18). http://files.archivists.org/pubs/CampusCaseStudies/CASE-18-Laura-Alagna.pdf

An insightful project done by researchers at Northwestern University (NU) to archive cell phone information is explained in this study. The project began with members of the NU Archives and Digital Collections joining a “Jump In” initiative that focused on assessing archival information on outdated hardware such as cell phones and computers. The focus of this study was on assessing and copying information from cell phones. Because the researchers were working with phones dating back to the mid-1990s, the biggest challenge they found was finding the correct cords, cables, and chargers. That lead to them starting a campaign called “UndeadTech” which was a way to crowd-source the necessary items. The campaign was a success, and as cords and cables started coming in they were able to start transferring information off the phones to a computer. This is where the study provides its most important contribution. The researchers broke down how they made decisions about what to copy from the device and how to copy the contents. They talk about the hierarchy of cell phone data, such as texts, images, contact lists, and emails, and which should be copied. This information would be helpful to anyone wanting to begin a similar project. Helpful tips for how to find the necessary resources are also provided.

Ashenfelder, M. (n.d.). The Library of Congress and personal digital archiving. Personal Archiving: Preserving Our Digital Heritage, 31-45. http://digitalpreservation.gov/documents/lc-digital-preservation.pdf?loclr=blogsig

This article was published by the Library of Congress and contains guidelines for anyone interested in personal archiving. Simple and straight-forward steps such as deciding what to keep, how to organize the files, when to save copies, and backing up files are discussed. The author provides steps for scanning photos and best practices for storing digital copies. He points out the importance of doing this regularly as it is costly to access items that have been saved on obsolete media or hardware. This article is especially helpful because of the way everything is simplified with clear instructions and advice for how to start archiving your personal data. After explaining The author advises that revisiting this storage every six years is important to combat obsolescence, whether it be the file format or the hardware used for storage.

Beyer, G. W. (2015). Web meets the will: Estate planning for digital assets. Estate Planning, 42(3), 28-41. http://www.naepcjournal.org/journal/issue20p.pdf

Beyer explores different types of digital assets that should be planned for in estate planning. Some of these include social media, financial accounts, blogs, loyalty programs, and even video games. He then provides specific information on how to move forward with archiving this data. An extensive and thorough sample form is provided that includes categories for different kinds of digital assets, and spaces for the type of information to protect, usernames, passwords, and pins. This gives the reader a jumping-off point for beginning the project. Beyer emphasizes the importance of planning for digital access, pointing out factors such as preventing personal secrets from being discovered, avoiding losing personal or family history, and preventing financial loss.

Condron, M. (2019). Identifying individual and institutional motivations in personal digital archiving. Preservation, Digital :Technology & Culture, 48(1), 28-37. DOI:10.1515/pdtc-2018-0032

Condron explains the difference between PDA (Personal Data Management) and PIM (Personal Information Management). PIM focuses more on strategies for preservation, approaches, and the personal need for preserving the information. PDA focuses more on personal, traditional preservation techniques. This distinction is important as one begins their personal data and/or information management because whichever one you choose will frame how you structure and begin your project. Condron talks about how the sheer scope of selecting which data to preserve is one of the roadblocks to starting personal information/data management. She then explains that curation choices made by individuals are very different from curation choices made by institutions and this is largely based on the motivation for the collection. After describing the different approaches by the two, she points out that both can learn from each other and in doing so, can fine-tune their guidelines.

Dinneen, J., Julien, C.-A. (2019). What’s in people’s digital file collections? Proceedings of the Association for Information Science & Technology, 56(1). DOI:10.1002/pra2.64

Curious about what sort of digital content individuals save, authors Dinneen and Julien conducted a study. Participants consisted of 218 males, 123 women, and 7 who categorized themselves as “other.” The age range was 14-64, with the mean age of 30. The only criteria for participating in the study was that the individual had to have files stored locally that they could manage, had to speak English, and had to download certain software. Participation was anonymous. The results of this study are very insightful as to what data people decided to store. The most common digital items, after work files, were photo images and development files. The next most important was audio, system, and extensionless files. Knowing this information, along with the other findings in the study, could help someone know where to begin curating their own collection. It is also useful to teachers and librarians to know what sort of training they can provide on curating personal data.

Eze, M. E., Clement, C. O., Bosah, G. E. (2019). Self-archiving options on social networks: a review of options. Library Hi Tech News, 36(1), 9-12. DOI:10.1108/LHTN-12-2017-0091

This paper focuses on the how, where, and why of self-archiving of academic papers. Various sites where researchers can archive their papers are listed with their individual benefits explained. Benefits of using these sites include increased visibility of a paper, increased citations, and being exposed to new ideas through the research of peers. The authors found that researchers do not use these sites for reasons such as lack of awareness, fear of infringing on (or not understanding) the journal’s copyright policies, the perception that self-archiving is time-consuming, and concern about the quality of the articles that have been self-archived. This paper touches on each of those concerns and seeks to bring awareness to the benefits of self-archiving, along with instruction on how to do so.

Kneese, T. (2019). Networked heirlooms: The affective and financial logics of digital estate Planning. Culture Studies, 33(2), 297-324. DOI:10.1080/09502386.2018.1466904

Kneese talks about something called “communicative traces,” which include data such as “likes,” “pokes,” “statuses,” and “tweets” on social media. These are all considered monetizable social data but they can also be considered sentimental by a deceased person’s loved ones once they are gone. That is why Kneese calls this data “networked heirlooms.” Legally, having access to this information is often impossible unless plans have been put in place. Kneese talks about the value of networked heirlooms and tools and websites for managing this data. This article is rich with information about planning for access to your social media after you’re gone.

Krtalic, M., Marcetic, H., & Micunovic, M. (2016). Personal digital information archiving among students of social sciences and humanities. Information Research: An International Electronic Journal, 21(2), 19 pp. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1104374

The authors created a survey to distribute to students in the fields of social studies and humanities to find out their experience and knowledge with personal data management. This is an interesting study in that it explores how students are approaching data management. Among the findings is that the students’ number one way of saving data is to file them on their personal computer. Almost half of the participants reported experiencing information fatigue when it comes to decisions regarding what data should be saved. This article gives interesting insights into how young people are approaching personal data management – what works, what doesn’t, and best practices for making decisions about personal data management.

Sinn, D., Kim, S., & Syn, S. Y. (2017). Personal digital archiving: influencing factors and challenges to practices. Library Hi Tech, 35(2), 222-239. DOI 10.1108/LHT-09-2016-0103

To begin, the authors describe some of the challenges to personal digital archiving. Selecting what needs to be saved is the biggest challenge for many who often select too many items and become overwhelmed. The authors created a survey to ask how the participants approach archiving their own digital content. Participants came from Amazon Mturk, so they had some level of comfort with internet technologies. The results of the survey offered interesting insights into current practices and misunderstandings about personal data archiving. Findings include the importance of “backing up” important data, making multiple copies, and the belief by the respondents that when they need the data, they will be able to easily find it. This study is important because it shows the gaps in general knowledge about personal data archiving and what to plan for.

Zastrow, J. (2017). Heirlooms then and now - online legacies and digital estate planning. Computers in Libraries, 37(5), 12-15. DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2018.1466904

In this article, Zastrow talks about how most people have not made plans for their digital assets for after they die. Important steps in planning for your digital afterlife include inventorying your digital assets and recording passwords and pins for each of these. The benefits of services such as SecureSafe, Dead Man’s Switch, and ifidie.com are described. Zastrow emphasizes the importance of revisiting this information every six months since this information (especially passwords) can change so frequently. The author also touches on legal issues one should know when planning for their digital afterlife. Zastrow makes it clear that these laws are always changing and being updated.