Personal Digital Archiving presentation given by Matthew Strauss at THATCamp Pittsburgh 2013.

1. THATCamp Pittsburgh 2013

2.  Personal Digital Archiving Introduction
 Recommendations for email, digital
photos, social media

3. Heinz History
Center
Historical
Society of
Western Pa. in
1879
Mission to
preserve and
provide access
to history of
the area.

4. Detre Library
and Archives
Families,
Businesses,
community
organizations
Diaries,
photographs,
letters, films &
more
1700s-present
day
Born Digital
Material

5. In the
future…
Email
Digital
images/video
Microsoft Office
documents
Websites
Social Media

6. Paper vs.
Digital
Papers and
photographs can
be neglected for
periods of time
Digital files need
to be actively
managed over
time

8. Hard Drive
Crashes
Not if, but
when
No warning
Complete loss

9. 1790 1990

10.  Companies may discontinue support for
older formats
 Companies might go out of businesses
 Try to keep your files in widely-supported,
open formats

11. Cloud
Insecurity
How long will
these companies
last?
Subject to
changes inTOS
Privacy/Hacker
concerns

12. Bit Rot
Store media
degrades over
time
Floppy disks,
CDs/DVDs,
flash memory
Files can
become
corrupted
Image credit - Digital Preservation BusinessCaseToolkit
http://wiki.dpconline.org

14.  Identify what you have and where you have
it
 Select what is important
 Organize your files
 Make copies

15.  Make sure you have at least one backup,
preferably in another location
 Backing up is not the same as archiving

17. 2. Decide what
is Important
Keep what has
enduring value
Highest quality
version
Final drafts
Clutter impedes
use!

18. 3. Organize
Gather all of
your files to
single folder on
your computer
Create a
centralized
DigitalArchive
folder
Use subfolders
to organize by
format

20. 4. Make
Copies
Regularly create
external copies of
your data
Store copies in
different
locations
Cloud storage
Consider a
replacement
schedule

21.  Email
 Photographs
 Facebook/Social Media

23. Where is your
email?
Online
accounts
Email Client
Old accounts,
devices

24. SelectWhat
is Important
Look for emails
that have long-
term value
Download
attachments

25. Export your
email
IMAP and Mozilla
Thunderbird
If using Outlook
or Apple Mail,
save files outside
of these
programs

26. Organize
Make use of
folders, labels
Organize by
date, topic, etc .
Export to your
Archive folders
.eml, mbox
formats

27.  In Gmail settings page
 After inactivity, content sent to
trusted contacts or deleted
 Google Drive, Picassa, etc.

31.  Select highest quality version of your image
 Convert raw files to more widely supported
formats

32. Organize
Organize into
folders
Add meaningful
file names, tags
and description.
Contextual info
adds value to
your images.

33. Metadata is
your friend
EXIF
Geolocation
Some metadata
might be
software/site
dependent
(facebook)

35. Facebook
Letters + photo
album + diary +
scrapbooks + etc.
Community adds
to your content

37. What you
get:
Your Photos,
with some
metadata and
comments
Chat, messages
Your wall info
Your “likes”

38.  List of friends I’ve unfollowed
 Pending friend requests
 IP addresses used when logging in
 Ad topics
(A list of topics that you may be targeted against based on your
stated likes, interests and other data you put in your timeline.)

39.  Photographs uploaded by other people
 Certain metadata (tags, locations, titles, likes)
 Facebook look and feel

40. Twitter
Tweets can be
downloaded
through settings
page
No lists of
followers, those
followed

41. Matthew Strauss
Chief Archivist
Detre Library and Archives
Senator John Heinz History Center
mstrauss@heinzhistorycenter.org