n. (also personal digital archive)digital records created and originally kept by an individualParadigm 2007, 18Maintaining contact with record creators over time is therefore of the utmost importance for archivists collecting personal digital archives. It may take years for record creators to develop enough trust in the repository to consider depositing their most sensitive or confidential papers.Thomas 2007, 5The challenges posed by personal digital archives, notably the need for ongoing preservation awareness and activity to begin much earlier in the lifecycle, invite the development of alternative strategies to accomplish these activities.Thomas 2007, 9The challenges posed by the preservation of personal digital archives are distributed amongst these three groups—the creators, the research libraries and the researchers. Some of the technical challenges are common to the preservation of other kinds of archival materials, which allows us to borrow from work undertaken in these areas; the organisational challenges are more particular to institutions that collect archives, especially personal archives, from multiple external sources.Redwine 2015, 2Personal digital archives contain files that capture both the mundane and the extraordinary, and represent moments that people may want to remember forever, as well as some that a person may wish had never happened. An important part of personal digital archiving involves determining, either individually or with the help of a curatorial institution, which parts of an individual’s ‘digital stuff‘ are worth trying to save permanently. The more actively one selects, manages and cares for personal digital archives, the more likely those are to survive the ravages of time on technology. Similarly, the more control an individual has over their personal archives, the greater their ability to save only what they intend.Redwine 2015, 7‘Personal digital archives’ is a formal term for the ‘digital stuff’ we create and save every day. These digital files can be as banal as a text message confirming a meeting time, or as significant as a digital video of a baby’s first steps. The meaning of digital files can change over time. The text message that initially seems inconsequential may take on vital significance if it ends up being the last communication from a loved one. A digital photograph of a painting for insurance purposes is not a substitute for the original, but may become incredibly significant if that artwork is stolen. This fluidity hints at one of the key challenges of preserving personal digital files: given the enormous volume of digital files being created, how can we know which ones to save?Chen 2016, 117, fn. 19Two influential projects investigating the preservation of personal digital archives include the Personal Archives Accessible in Digital Media (Paradigm) project, led by the University of Oxford and the University of Manchester from 2005 to 2007, www.paradigm.ac.uk; and Digital Lives, led by the British Library, in partnership with University College London and the University of Bristol, and completed in 2009.Pendergrass et al. 2019, 182–183Many versions of documents with no or only slight differences between them are frequently found in organizational and personal digital archives.
