The Complete Guide to Personal Digital Archiving

Everyone needs assistance and guidance on managing their personal digital information, and library and information professionals are in a unique position to help. The Complete Guide to Personal Digital Archiving will help them pass on critical skills and simple principles for how to store, share, and preserve digital objects.

Personal Digital Archiving (PDA) is the collection, management, and preservation of personal materials created in digital media. These materials can include digital photographs and videos, documents, e-mail, websites, and social media content. For information professionals, PDA encourages collaboration with users, with the goals of supporting digital information fluency and assisting individuals in their efforts to preserve their personal and family digital records.

Featuring expert contributors working in a variety of contexts, this practical resource will help librarians empower their users to take charge of their personal digital materials. Coverage includes:

• explanations of common terms in plain language
• quick, non-technical solutions to the most frequent user requests
• guidance on how to archive social media posts, digital photographs, and web content
• an exploration of data, privacy, and ethical concerns that must be considered when archiving and curating personal data
• ways to help plan digital estates as heirlooms and memory objects
• perspective on balancing core library values with the business goals of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and other dominant platforms
• additional resources and bibliographies for digging deeper

This book will be useful reading for library and information professionals working in all sectors, archivists, and LIS students.