1. Preserving Digital Memories
Amanda Stone and Jessica Dame
South Carolina State Library
May 16, 2014
PERSONAL DIGITAL
ARCHIVING

2. Introduction
“Our photo albums, letters, home movies and paper documents are a
vital link to the past. Personal information we create today has the
same value. The only difference is that much of it is now digital.
Chances are that you want to keep some digital photos, email and
other files so that you—and your family—can look at them in the
future.”
• Library of Congress Video
• Paper Documents
• Digital Documents
• Email
• Social Media, Blogs, Websites
• Digital Estate Plan
• Personal Archiving Day

3. 4 Simple Steps
• Identify everything to be saved.
• Gather in one place such as a folder on your computer
• Decide what to keep.
• Decide what is worth keeping and discard/delete the rest
• Organize the files.
• Organize in a meaningful, consistent way
• Store in multiple locations.
• Choose at least 2 formats. No storage device is 100% reliable

4. Paper Documents & Photographs
• Identify print documents and photographs.
• Attics, basements, closets, boxes, drawers, etc.
• Decide what is most important.
• Select what is important and should be scanned
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons

5. Paper Documents & Photographs
• Scan and organize documents and photographs.
• Home scanner, local library
• Save to computer
• Name files
• Example file name: LasVegas_2014.jpg or Libris-2014.jpg
• Save as TIFF (when able) and JPEG
• Store originals in safe environment.
• Central location in the home
• Away from light
• Cool and dry environment
• Acid-free enclosure
Containerstore.com

6. Digital Documents & Photographs
• Identify digital documents and photographs.
• Computer files, email, cellphone, social media, CDs, flash drives, floppy (?!!)
• Save all items to folder on your computer for organizing
• Decide what is most important.
• Select the best images, important documents, etc.
flickr.com community.comicbookresourses.com

7. Digital Documents & Photographs
• Organize the files.
• Give individual photos descriptive file names
• Create a directory/folder structure on your computer
• Example file name: LasVegas_2014.jpg or 01-Libris-2014.jpg
• Store them in different places.
• Make at least two copies of your selected photos—more copies are better
• One copy can stay on your computer or laptop; put other copies on
separate media such as portable hard drives, thumb drives or Internet
storage
• Check your photos at least once a year to make sure you can access them.
• Create new media copies every five years or when necessary to avoid data
loss

8. Email
• Archiving email can be a challenge.
• Email can live:
• Locally on your computer
• Remotely on your email host’s website
• Each email program works differently for backup copies!
• Export the selected messages
• If saving a few messages, you can use the “save as” command in your
email browser or software program to export them as individual files.
• If saving many e-mails, investigate automatically exporting them using the
email program.
• If possible, save as text files (.txt)
• Email backups will not save the file attachments

9. Email Examples
• Gmail/ Google Accounts
• Data tool allows you to download a copy of your data from 18 Google
products, including Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Youtube, Bookmarks
• Mail is in MBOX format

10. Email Examples
• Outlook
• Several options:
• backup .pst file
• AutoArchive feature
• Import & Export wizard

11. Social Media, Websites, & Blogs
• Identify where you have your digital document files
• Locate all your content on the Web, including personal websites and social
media sites and services.
• Be sure to include current information as well as any older (archived)
content.
• Decide which information has long-term value
• Pick the information that you feel is
especially important.
• You can pick individual pieces of
information or you can select whole pages
or websites.

12. Social Media, Websites, & Blogs
• Export the selected information
• If saving a limited amount of information, you can use the “save as”
command in your web browser to export the website as individual files.
• If saving entire pages or sites, check into automatically exporting them as a
series of linked files.
• Save metadata for your web content information, such as site name or
date created.
• Organize the information
• Give individual files descriptive file names.
• Create a directory/folder structure on your computer to put the saved
information.
• Write a brief summary of the directory structure and its files.

13. Social Media Examples
• Twitter
• You can request your Twitter archive
• Facebook
• Download Your Info
• Most blog software and social media sites have export or
archiving functions

14. Where to Save Digital Content
• Physical storage
• CDs/DVDs, portable hard drives, thumb drives
• Careful handling, stable/moderate temp and humidity, proper labeling,
disaster prevention will all extend life of physical media
• Cloud storage
• File hosting services online
• Amazon Cloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud
• Example: Amazon Cloud Drive: 5 GB free, 20 GB-$10/year 200 GB-$100/year
• Wikipedia comparison of file hosting services

15. Where to Save Digital Content
• Make copies and manage them in different places
• Make at least two copies of your selected information—more copies are
better.
• One copy can stay on your computer or laptop; put other copies on
separate media such as DVDs, CDs, portable hard drives, thumb drives or
Internet storage.
• Store copies in different locations that are as physically far apart as
practical. If disaster strikes one location, the other copy of your important
web content in the other place should be safe.
• Put a copy of the summary description with your important papers in a
secure location.
• Check your saved files at least once a year to make sure you can read them.
• Create new media copies every five years or when necessary to avoid data
loss.

16. Digital Estate Plan
• Consider digital assets when creating a will.
• Provide instruction on how your want your digital archive
maintained/accessed.
• Keep a thorough and up-to-date list of passwords, computers,
external drives, etc.
• The Digital Beyond
• Types of digital assets to include:
• Documents, images
• Financial and merchant accounts
• Emails, blogs, social media
• Online storage accounts

17. Personal Archiving Day
• Library event held to provide basic guidance to community about
preserving personal and family memories.
• Examples: Richland and Clemson
• Library of Congress offers a kit!
• How to plan, organize, and publicize
• Suggested handouts, videos, and links to other resources
Images from Rooted in Family event hosted by Clemson at Richland

18. Digitization in a Box
• New project from the State Library
• Public libraries can borrow
scanning equipment, laptop, and
software from the State Library to
start a new digitization project
• Loaned for 2 months
• On-site training and set-up
• Collections will be available
through the South Carolina Digital
Library & Digital Public Library of
America Four children using the Lexington County Library
bookmobile, South Carolina (Bookmobiles Collection,
South Carolina State Library)

19. Further Information
• Personal Archiving – Library of Congress
digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/index.html
• Embedding metadata into digital images (tutorials)
photometadata.org/meta-tutorials
• Perspectives on Personal Digital Archiving
digitalpreservation.gov/documents/ebookpdf_march18.pdf

20. • Pop Quiz!
• Amanda Stone
• astone@statelibrary.sc.gov
• Jessica Dame
• jdame@statelibrary.sc.gov
• Questions & Comments?
By Valerie McKeehan