Monday, May 25, 2015

Helping Members of the Community Manage Their Digital Lives: Developing a Personal Digital Archiving Workshop

It is estimated that  93 percent of all new information is born digital. Because of the amount of digital material and the ease with which it can be deleted or lost, digital materials are very much at risk. Because libraries and librarians have the means and knowledge to care for digital materials, the responsibility to educate library users about personal digital archiving should fall on library shoulders. One way this can be done is by hosting a personal digital archiving workshop. Some questions to ask in creating such a workshop would be:
  • Who is the audience?
  • What kinds of digital materials do people have? 
  • how do people store their digital belongings now? 
  • what motivates them to maintain personal digital information?  
  • What resources are available?
Some discussion points for the workshop:
  1. Identify what you have and where it is located.
  2. Decide what you want to keep
  3. Organize what you have and how it can be identified
  4. Save the digital materials and manage what you have saved
 It may also be worthwhile in discussing digital estate planning and designating a "digital executor" which should be identified in a legal will.

No comments: