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Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
I’m cleaning out my office in preparation for retiring on March 7. I’ve accumulated a few mementos during my career, and moving them out stirs up memories. One of my favorite keepsakes is a framed 1986 poster from the National Archives and Records Administration that proclaims “Our Records, Your Responsibilities.” It offers little in the …
Posted in: Personal Archiving
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
Curiously, most of us in the digital memory business are hesitant to visually document our own work. Possibly this has to do with the perceived nature of the enterprise, which involves tasks that may seem routine. But pictures tell an important story, and I set about finding a few that depicted some of the digital preservation …
Posted in: Outreach and Events, Partners and Collaboration, Personal Archiving
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
What if the Kennedy assassination had happened during the era of smartphones and laptops? And, assuming the perpetrator left a digital trail, would that evidence uncover any associated conspiracy? As we approach the 50th anniversary of that awful day in Dallas, recent public opinion polls indicate that over 60 percent of Americans believe more than …
Posted in: Personal Archiving
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
This is a guest post by Abbie Grotke, Web Archiving Team Lead. We recently moved to a new house, and my husband, a professional musician, has been working on setting up a music and recording studio upstairs now that we have the room. Alongside the clarinets, saxophones and keyboard sit a desktop computer (with better …
Posted in: Personal Archiving
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
I am relentlessly optimistic about the future of personal digital archiving. There is simply too much at stake, in my mind, to feel anything but hopeful. Let’s face it, though: it’s hard. A well-regarded expert who has spent years studying personal digital habits tells me that people just won’t invest time and effort to preserve …
Posted in: Personal Archiving
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
When we first started promoting personal archiving on our website a couple of years ago, the topics was fairly new. The efforts of major institutions to preserve and make available digital content were well-known, of course, but the idea of doing something similar for personal material was embryonic. Since then, attention to what can be …
Posted in: Personal Archiving
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
We don’t usually repost other’s content here, but this graphic is such a perfect illustration about the challenge of personal digital archiving that it deserves special attention. It’s from Doghouse Diaries.
Posted in: Personal Archiving
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
We write frequently on this blog about the value of personal digital archiving–empowering people to pass on digital memories to their families and others. We’ve always seen public libraries as key allies in promoting personal archiving, and have highlighted libraries that undertake outreach and training in this area. There is a related role for public libraries and …
Posted in: Digital Content, Personal Archiving, Publications and Resources
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
We have moved so far so fast with personal computing that older machines are acquiring a cultural patina. Everyone, seemingly, has a memory of “old computers,” even if some people think having a hard drive under 100 gigabytes fits the definition. There are perhaps two ways to think about obsolete computers. One is as trash …
Posted in: Personal Archiving