Introduction to the personal digital archiving issues and advice from the Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program

1. Leslie Johnston
11/14/2013
Personal Digital Archiving Initiatives at the
Library of Congress

2. The Problem We Must Advise On

3. Institutions and individuals use
similar technologies

4. …and have similar stakes

5. Photographs Email
Documents
Audio Video
Websites
21st Century digital valuables
Plus:
- social media profiles
- game characters
- network of business
associates that you may
have built up over time on
business networking sites
- …and more artifacts of
your online life.

6. All of these materials are part of the
life histories of individuals, and all
will be coming to cultural heritage
institutions as part of personal
collections.

7. Traditional storage of material
valuables
We can ignore paper photos and documents
for years and trust that we can likely enjoy
them any time in the future.

8. There are additional and different
inherent risks for digital storage
It’s easy to lose track of digital items,
scattered on websites, thumb drives,
and CDs.

9. Each digital storage medium has hidden vulnerabilities and
a limited lifespan.
Each digital storage medium becomes obsolete as
technology improves and files could get trapped on
obsolete media.
Obsolescence

10. Email, social media, cloud storage and other
online services can go out of business or
could be hacked.
The Risk of Loss

11. What NDIIPP at the
Library of Congress is Doing

12. Digital Preservation has a long history at the
Library, cemented in the creation of the
National Digital Information Infrastructure and
Preservation Program in 2000.
Five years ago the Library recognized that
individuals are amassing huge personal digital
collections, and are unaware of the potential
risks and threats to their digital items.
Why is the Library of Congress
Doing This?

13. 1313
NDIIPP Personal Digital Archiving
Libraries/archives have reasons to engage with individuals
about personal digital preservation
May bring in personal digital collections
Answer patron questions
Raise institutional visibility with the general public
Providing even basic information is very helpful

14. Public Events
 ALA Preservation Week
 Webinars and “Personal Archiving Day” events
 Public Libraries
 Events and Public Library Association blog series
 Personal Digital Archiving Day Kit
http://digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/padKit/index.html
 National Book Festival
NDIIPP Personal Digital Archiving

15. Brochures
http://digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/documents/PA_All_
brochure.pdf
Videos
http://digitalpreservation.gov/multimedia/videos/personalarchiving.h
tml
Quiz
http://digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/quiz/
Articles
http://digitalpreservation.gov/documents/lc-digital-preservation.pdf
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/
NDIIPP Personal Digital Archiving

17. 1717
Other NDIIPP Personal Digital
Archiving Outreach
The Signal BlogThe Signal Blog
http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/category/personal-archiving/
TwitterTwitter
https://twitter.com/ndiipp
FacebookFacebook
https://www.facebook.com/digitalpreservation

18. General Advice We Give

19. Personal Archiving is Digital
Preservation at its Most Basic
Identify where you have files/informationIdentify where you have files/information
Decide which is most importantDecide which is most important
Organize what you selectOrganize what you select
Make copies and store them in different placesMake copies and store them in different places
Put a copy of media, written inventories, passwords withPut a copy of media, written inventories, passwords with
your important papers in a secure locationyour important papers in a secure location
Create new media copies every five years or whenCreate new media copies every five years or when
necessary to avoid data lossnecessary to avoid data loss

20. Personal digital archiving best
practices are based on our
institutional digital archiving
practices.

21. INSTITUTIONAL
File ingestion
Verification/checksum
Naming/Identification
Organization
Back up
Migrate to new storage
PERSONAL
File accumulation
Making sure they’re OK
Re-naming to help find them
Organization
Back up
Migrate to new storage

22. 1. Identify what you want to save and decide what is most important
to you
2. Organize your digital possessions
3. Save copies in different places
4. Move your collection to a current storage medium once every five
to seven years
The Basics of Personal Digital
Archiving Advice

23. Organize
Descriptive folder and file names help you and others
find things.

24. Backup
Copy the folder to at least two different types of media/storage
devices.
The professional photographer’s 3 - 2 - 1 rule:
 Make 3 copies
 Save at least 2 onto different types of storage media
 Save 1 in a different location from where you live
Verify that the files copied over.
Spot check your files and open a few to verify that they copied over
intact, especially the more important ones.
Save copies in different locations.
If you backup to an online storage service – “The Cloud” – also
keep a backup on a local storage device.

25. Manage
Actively manage your collection.
Confirm that you know where all your files and media are.
Check that the files and media are still readable.
Move your collection to a current storage medium once every
five to seven years, well before your current file formats and
storage device become obsolete
When planning your estate, let a loved one know
where you store your important documents. Supply passwords,
if needed.

26. Case Study: Digital Photos

27. Explain the Process of Taking
Digital Photos
The camera:
1. saves the photo as a file
2. names the file
3. inserts technical information inside the file
4. saves the file in a JPEG format (most consumer
cameras) or RAW (some professional cameras).

28. The device/camera saves the photo as a file to internal
storage media.
Advise to get photo files off the device as soon as
possible and back them up.
Explain the Process of Saving
Digital Photos

29. The camera names the file.
Advise that naming the file with a descriptive name it can help you
identify the photo without displaying it.
Explain the Process of Saving
Digital Photos

30. The camera embeds technical
information within the photo
file.
Explain that photo editing
software will enable them to
add a description into the
photo file. But some photo-
editing and photo-managing
software instead links the
descriptions to the
software and not in the
photo files.
Explain the Concept of Metadata
for Digital Photos

31.  Advise on the metrics for quality, such as PPI and compression.
 Explain the need for multiple copies of photos for different purposes.
 Advise that people make an active decision about the quality they want
or need for their photos based upon use.
 For the web: smaller, lower resolution files.
 For prints: larger, high-resolution files.
 Explain that when they upload photos to some websites, such as photo
sharing or social media websites, they may get compressed to reduce
the size of the file, which will lower the quality of the photo by reducing
the number of pixels.
 Explain that once a photo is compressed and pixels are removed they
can never regain the original quality.
 That’s why everyone should always safely preserve their originals and
work with copies.
Explain the Concept of Quality for
Digital Photos

32. Scan the average 4"x6" to 8”x 10” photo at 300 dpi/ppi.
Scan slides and tiny photos at 1800 dpi/ppi.
Explain that when you have a choice of which file format to
save the scanned photo or slide, JPEG is still the standard
most often used.
Point out that some websites will only let you upload JPEGs.
Advise to always choose the highest quality when saving files.
Provide Guidelines on Scanning
Digital Photos

33. And Now to Discuss
For detailed information, please visit:
http://digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/
For a reprint book chapter overview, go to
http://digitalpreservation.gov/documents/lc-digital-preservation.pdf
Leslie Johnston
lesliej@loc.gov