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Category: Personal Archiving

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Family History and Digital Preservation, part 2

Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder

In part 1 of this article, I wrote that relational databases are the engines that drive digital genealogy. Databases make it possible to quickly search through enormous quantities of records, find the person you’re looking for and discover related people and events. And when institutions collaborate and share databases, statistical information becomes enriched. For example, …

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Remember When We had Photographs?

Posted by: Leslie Johnston

On a recent trip I visited a funky vintage store to see if anything caught my eye.  While I was easily able to keep myself from buying any jewelry or taxidermy, I came across a number of displays of family photographs available for sale. Not only were there bowls of loose photos, there was a …

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Family History and Digital Preservation, part 1

Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder

The popularity of genealogy websites and TV shows is rapidly growing, mainly because the Internet has made it so convenient to access family history information. Almost everything can be done through the computer now. Before the digital age, genealogical research was not only laborious and time consuming, it also resulted in boxes of documents: photos, …

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Why Should We Save Our Email?

Posted by: Susan Manus

When was the last time you wrote a letter, on paper?  Other than my note-to-self stickies (my desk usually has a bunch), or greeting cards, I personally have not written much of substance, just on paper, in a long time. These days, of course, we are engulfed in the digital versions of note writing – …

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Digital Preservation in a Box: NDSA Outreach

Posted by: Butch Lazorchak

“Bob, can you give a presentation to thirty 8th graders on digital preservation.” “Sure. When’s the presentation?” “At 3:00 o’clock today.” “[YIKES!]” If your organization is like most, this scenario happens more regularly than you’d like. Fear not! The National Digital Stewardship Alliance Outreach Working Group set out to provide some solutions during its workshop …

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Carolina on My Mind: Marketing Digital Preservation

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

The following is a guest post by Victoria Priester, a 2011 Junior Fellow working with NDIIPP. During my first week as a Library of Congress Junior Fellow I was given the North Carolina Public Outreach and Education Project. The project’s objective was to send resources and information about personal digital preservation to public libraries, community …