[Personal_archives] dialogue on arrangement and digital personal archives

[Hobbs, Catherine]

Sarah: What a surprise. Great to have you with us!  Thanks for your post. I'll forward you the reading you might not have so you can keep being involved.

I'm very interested in how we might take the behaviour patterns and mindsets of individuals into our appraisal and description of archives at the same time as acknowledging the constraints and new behaviours that the environment imposes or even makes easily done (and therefore easily forgotten)--as was expressed in Rodney's post and Heather's comment on re-writing being "haphazard and reactionary" and your comments which underline the role of IT providers.  How do we balance a knowledge of the creator's practice and biases with making clear those generally understood constraints of platform and technology, even as these technologies and platforms are advancing extremely quickly?  I've been proposing a sketch of the creator's relationship to technology and modus operandi within technology for appraisal and archival description.  This is extremely complex when we consider that each technology brings with it constraints on what digital humanists have called "materiality" (how we use tools and what these tools make possible for us to envision doing and to create). Of course as we know this would all be bounded by what the archivist could reasonably do and the ability of the creator to remember.

Catherine


-----Original Message-----
From: personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sarah Kim
Sent: April-06-12 5:18 PM
To: Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Personal_archives] dialogue on arrangement and digital personal archives

Hello all,
I would like to add something to previous comments related to diskettes.

"The diskette seemed to be acting as we normally understand the file to act in traditional physical archives. (Catherine Hobbs)": I share the thought that diskettes are more than temporary storage media. In some cases, they indeed function as folders, thus they are part of the "original order" of a collection showing how the creator categorized/grouped her files. Pat Galloway at UT Austin has taught a digital collection preservation class. In her class, she experiments how to incorporate diskettes in the arrangement of personal digital collections. Once personal digital collections are processed and deposited into institutional repositories, it is possible to build multiple virtual arrangement structures without actually re-arranging individual files. A diskette base arrangement can provide an additional picture of "the character of personal archives" and the personality of a creator.

"I would say that this is changing rapidly, but has reflected the way in which the creators have seen this material - as different from the other material but unified through its difference. (Heather Home)":
Adding to this, I also think old diskettes as physical objects evoke and bring out some sort of sentimentality and/or historical aspects of personal digital collections. Many of my research participants said that they still keep their old floppy diskettes (e.g., 5.25" and 3.5") that they cannot render anymore. In some cases, people already transferred files on them to newer storage like their current personal computers or external hard drives but still keep the diskettes.

It is highly likely that personal digital collections will be transferred or donated to archives in a very different form and method in the relatively near future (probably no more diskettes at some point and probably less, a lot less analog documents): thinking of the increasing use of cloud storage where the IT service providers get involved more deeply in the formation of personal digital collections at the first place and where the word "archives" is often used without clear distinction from backup data or date warehousing (e.g., "Gmail's "archive" feature (Rodney Carter)" is an example!). Since floppy diskettes already became a part of history in some sense and their physical longevity is unknown, they seem like particularly interesting objects to think of and question their preservation needs at this point.

Just my two cents.
Sarah Kim
(My hands-on experience with personal collections is extremely limited compared to many people in this group. My thoughts are based on my work with a few personal digital collections and individuals mostly for my research.)
--
Sarah Kim
Doctoral candidate
School of Information, University of Texas at Austin http://srhkim.com/ _______________________________________________
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