Registration Closed.

With Donald T. Hawkins 

You will need an internet-connected computer & computer speakers / headset / phone for audio.

Thursday, May 19, 2:00pm - 3:00pm ET

Personal Digital Archiving (PDA) refers to how individuals create, store, and manage their digital files. Libraries and other cultural institutions have long been engaged in preservation activities, but now individuals are becoming interested in preserving their digital heritage. In response to this trend, the Library of Congress as well as commercial organizations have begun to offer services to help people archive their important documents and compile family histories. Libraries have a significant role to play in PDA because many of their users need help in understanding the issues and in beginning a PDA project.

In this webinar, I will describe the major driving forces of PDA and some of the issues affecting it, especially organization and digitization of materials not in digital form. Significant commercial services now available will be described. Storage and technology considerations must be addressed. Digital legacies are critically important for PDA, and it is important for people with a significant digital footprint to consider them and how they want to pass their archives on to their heirs. Some people will opt to do their own digitization; I will also present a case study of my own PDA project and how I archived a large collection of family photos on 35mm slides dating from the 1950s.

Donald T. Hawkins is an information industry freelance writer based in Pennsylvania. In addition to blogging and writing about conferences for Against the Grain, he blogs the Computers in Libraries and Internet Librarian conferences for Information Today, Inc. (ITI) and maintains the Conference Calendar on the ITI website. He is the Editor of Personal Archiving: Preserving Our Digital Heritage, (Information Today, 2013) and Co-Editor of Public Knowledge: Access and Benefits (Information Today, 2016). He holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley and has worked in the online information industry for over 40 years.