Book: Personal Archiving: Preserving Our Digital Heritage

Personal Archiving: Preserving Our Digital Heritage
Edited by Donald T. Hawkins

2013 

Information Today, Inc.

Short overview by Mike Ashenfelder at the Library of Congress and one of the contributors:
http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2013/11/library-of-congress-contributes-chapter-to-new-personal-digital-archiving-book/

I contributed one chapter where I attempted to show the deep complexity of this phenomenon and tried to provide an overview about how personal digital archiving as a practice and as a research theme is related to many areas and fields.

One fruit of the Personal Digital Archiving Conference

Book: I, DIGITAL: Personal Collections in the Digital Era

A new book about personal digital archives came out with a nice cover image.

I, DIGITAL: Personal Collections in the Digital Era 
Edited by Christopher (Cal) Lee
Published by Society of American Archivists (2011)

I am still reading it. So far, Catherine C. Marshall (Challenges and Opportunities for Personal Digital Archiving) offers interesting perspectives and discussion points.
"To desire to centralize, to fully federate, to unity and standardize is understandable, but it also seems out-of-step with human nature." (Marshall, p.111): I share this notion.

Book: After Death, Protecting Your 'Digital Afterlife'

Digital archiving to-do handbook by Romano and Carroll. However, no references or bibliography. Minimum citations. How can a book like this, which is neither a fiction nor a personal essay, be written with such a little amount of citations even though it may be written for general audience?
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/132617124/after-death-protecting-your-digital-afterlife

The Digital Beyond Website: It provides an digital death related online service list

Book: Richard Cox, Personal Archives and a New Archival Calling

Book: Personal Archives and a New Archival Calling by Richard Cox, 2009

"Archivists need to transform their own culture from one of collecting and acquiring to one of collaborating and assisting. Doing this should also open up new possibilities for promoting, in a more understandable fashion, the archival mission. ... At one time, personal archives were the backbone of public archives, the most prized acquisition by archivists, manuscripts curators, and special collections librarians because of the quality of the documentary evidence they provide and often their association with important events or famous people. Now they may be valued more by the individuals and families keeping them for highly personal reasons of identity, memory, sentimentality, or whatever. In my opinion, the archival mission is in the midst of great change, and it is a change that needs to be embraced and nurtured."

Indeed! I think, the increasing interests in how to preserve/archive "my own digital materials" can be turn into a golden opportunity for professional archivists to expand the rigid boundary of traditional archives, interact with more ordinary individuals as their clients, and take an active role in the information technology development where the money goes.