Volume 48, Issue 1 - Special Issue: Personal Digital Archiving Conference 2018: Selected Papers / Guest Editor: Melody Condron

On April 23–25, 2018, the University of Houston hosted the annual Personal Digital Archiving (PDA) Conference in Houston, Texas. The conference is a focused, single-track event that brings together information professionals, students, and non-academics. Though small, the conference commonly attracts attendees from around the world to discuss topics focused on the intersection of personal archiving and technology. The three-day event was comprised of two full days of presentations to all attendees. Over 140 attendees from five countries were in attendance. Two keynotes, nineteen sessions with question and answer panels, seven posters, and six lightning talks were presented. A third day offered two hands-on workshops and a tour of the Houston Metropolitan Research Center. In this introduction, the Chair of the Conference Planning Committee and Guest Editor of this issue, Melody Condron, discusses highlights of the conference, as well as themes and discussion that tie into the papers presented in this issue.

This review of the 2018 conference hosted by the University of Houston Libraries, includes an introduction to the Personal Digital Archiving conference an summary of the 2018 event, and a brief discussion of the upcoming 2019 conference to be held at the University of Pittsburgh.

The interconnectedness between personal digital archiving (PDA) and community-based digital archiving provides an entry point for thinking about how to better bridge the two within single projects. Flexibility and sustainability are dimensions that warrant special consideration to support PDA within community-based digital archiving projects. This paper examines the flexibility and sustainability of two community-based mobile digitization projects (Culture in Transit and Georgia HomePLACE DigiKits) in supporting PDA. The assessment shows that the projects are in a good position to support PDA, with only some concerns about ensuring sustainable access to digitization equipment and sufficient guidance in long-term preservation. Drawing from this work, I propose three ways community-based mobile digitization projects can be redesigned to further strengthen their support for PDA without undermining their community-based objectives. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the value in considering connections and differences between community and personal archiving needs in current and future projects, and calls for further coordination of efforts and collaboration to build better collaboration between community and personal archiving.

This article focuses on the work and efforts put forth by the University of Houston’s Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage program (Recovery) to create the first digital humanities center for US Latina/o Research: #usLdh. Recovery is a program to locate, preserve, and make available the written legacy of Latinas/os in the United States since colonial times until 1960. Through 27 years of successful work Recovery has not only been able to inscribe the excluded history of Latinas/os, but also has created an inclusive and vast digital repository that facilitates scholarship in this area of studies. This article focuses on the importance of recovery work in the writing, teaching, and understanding of history and considers how local personal archives have helped to fill in the gaps of mainstream history. We will detail the goals and challenges of this mission, as well as the importance of educating the community in digital methods that preserve and disseminate minority voices.

Personal digital archiving (PDA) is a relatively new field. As it has developed, two distinct personas have emerged: the individual person, seeking to capture and archive their own or someone else’s personal digital materials; and the institution—including museums, libraries, and archives—attempting to acquire and manage personal digital materials. In doing so, institutions also advocate for the preservation and management of personal digital archives and digital file management practices held in private hands. However, individuals and institutions make different choices in terms of curation and management, based on skills, knowledge, purpose, function and economics. Understanding these differences can aid institutional support for personal archives, as well as help to build collaborative frameworks to help personal and institutional differences be better understood. This paper identifies the similarities and differences in motivation and approach between individual and institutional practices and perspectives in PDA.

This article introduces the DC Public Library’s Memory Lab, designed to bring personal digital archiving to the public, and its inspiring the IMLS-funded Memory Lab Network project. This ongoing project will bring the Memory Lab model to fourteen other public libraries across the country. However, a prefabricated Memory Lab handed out to each partner library is proving to be impractical and impossible. The Memory Lab Network’s project manager shares recommendations, considerations, and key takeaways on equipment, purchasing, and physical space for anyone wishing to build a personal digital archiving lab themselves.

Regional archival organizations across the United States have been bringing out the archives in free events designed to showcase collections in public spaces, and connect communities to local history resources. Called archives bazaars or crawls , these outreach events showcase the vibrant spectrum of archives from private collections, community organizations, municipal archives, and public and academic libraries. This short paper explores the history of these community archives events, and describes the creation, challenges and outcomes of hosting the inaugural 2017 Houston Archives Bazaar.