Rethinking Personal Digital Archiving, Part 2

In this article I explore the implications of the four challenges presented in Part 1 – (1) accumulation, (2) distribution, (3) digital stewardship, and (4) long-term access – and discuss some promising technological directions and requirements for each. To address issues associated with accumulation, I examine the question of what we should keep and how we should designate and assess value of digital objects. Distribution raises the question of where we should put our digital belongings; here I propose the creation of a catalog of distributed stores. Digital stewardship raises the fundamental question of maintenance outside of the institution; in this case, I discuss a range of curation services and mechanisms. Finally, there is the question of how we will find these items we have stored long ago; I look at some new access modes that have begun to appear. I then wrap up the discussion by reflecting on what it means to lose some of our digital assets and how we might think of digital archiving technologies.