Personal Digital Archiving - Jeremy Myntti (13 October 2022)

Jeremy Myntti, Associate University Librarian for Metadata and IT at the Brigham Young University Library, presents on ways you can preserve your digital memories.

[delhatton]

Very well done.
You covered all the bases.
You think like a librarian, of course.
BUT...
(I apologize for the length of this reply.)

I have come to realize that when considering archiving the most important question is "Why am I doing this?"

Dealing with this question requires serious thought, brutal honesty, and thinking about the details.

What is the REAL probability that I or anybody will ever want to look at this file or object again?

Am I suffering from "Disposophobia"? Am I a hoarder? (I first heard the term in the series "Bones". It changed my life.)

For example,
What is the real probability that you or anybody will ever want to read your senior thesis?

Why would anybody want to look at 160 pictures of a your family's trip to the zoo next year? 10 years from now? Within your lifetime? In the distant future?

Are you working so hard preparing your "stuff" for an audience that will never exist or will cease to exist?.

Personal example, photos.
Over the years I lovingly created albums containing paper photos. Thousands of old fashioned paper photos labeled by hand with the metadata.
In the best available photo holders.
Why?
I had a vision. Me and my daughter and grandchildren sitting on the couch looking at these photos and happily reminiscing.
Problem: No grandchildren.

So, at some point, maybe when my daughter is cleaning out my house, or someone is cleaning out her house, these albums will be going into dumpster. Of course I won't be around so I won't care. And the world will not have lost anything significant.