I’m sure these types of classes will become standard at every library at some point. – Jon Eriksen
Public libraries are becoming the front lines in the spread of digital literacy. This is evident in the calls for action contained in the Institute of Museum and Library Science’s “Building Digital Communities” guide and in the increasing volume of topics about “digitization” and “digital libraries” at ALA conferences.
“Digital literacy” in the context of public libraries refers mainly to empowering people to use computers and the Internet in order to improve their quality of life and job prospects.
But another aspect to digital literacy that is slowly gaining ground is understanding how easy it is to lose access to digital possessions and how that loss can be prevented. Some inspired public library staff are teaching personal digital archiving to their communities. These librarians realize that personal digital archiving is of crucial value to everyone in their community and they are stepping up and doing something about it.
Jon Eriksen is one of those inspired volunteers. Eriksen is a technology and reference librarian at the The New Canaan Public Library and since the fall of 2012 he has been organizing personal digital archiving events in public libraries in and around New Canaan, Connecticut. I contacted Eriksen and asked him about his outreach work.
What motivated you to organize these presentations?
When I was working on the research for my master’s thesis, which used a personal information management perspective to look at artists’ uses of their personal collections, I got interested in personal digital archives and collections.