Since I am doing an LIS and ARM double concentration, this issue has come up in many of my courses. Archivists are still trying to figure out the implications of storing so much data on the internet, and I even wrote a term paper last semester about using Facebook and Instagram as informal personal archives, and the challenges of its preservation. In the end, I had very few viable ideas for the preservation of this type of information, and there was not a whole lot of literature available to provide guidance.
Because my research for my project will be mainly through observation of online communities, this is still a big issue for me. In terms of documenting that observation, I may be taking a lot of notes, as well as screen shots. But in order to ensure that the data is made available for future use, the best solution that I can think of at this point is the print it out onto paper, and store it under the proper archival protocols. This is not, however, an especially helpful solution to the larger problem we have as a society with digital records. There is simply too much information out there to think about printing it all out and finding places to store it all.
Oh! I'm interested to read what you wrote about informal personal archives. I'm not sure if there is a point on preserving informal personal archives, with all the things that put out and share on social media. I mean, do we need to know someone ate an omelette on a certain day?
ReplyDeleteHowever, a question made me consider my stance on what needs to be kept, in particular, artifacts of our daily lives, like receipts.
A friend of mine had asked me whether receipts of book purchases are likely to be kept and preserved by libraries a few weeks ago because she was looking into a stolen collection that was sold to a library (the library didn't know!). I had presumed that the receipt would have been kept for a few years just for record keeping purposes before getting thrown out like every other receipts because receipts are just receipts. However, I also feel that it is a shame, since the receipt is part of the collection's history.
So yeah, I still don't know how I should determine what's worth keeping and preserving, unless it's statements of tax returns, which I always keep somewhere safe but end up losing the one I need anyway.