Managing the Digital You

Where and How to Keep and Organize Your Digital Life

By (author) Melody Karle

Publication date:

24 February 2017

Length of book:

164 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Dimensions:

239x159mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781442278875

Managing the Digital You: Where and How to Keep and Organize Your Digital Life is a much-needed guide for those struggling with how to manage and preserve their digital items. Starting with a values assessment, this book helps readers identify what items are important to them personally so that they can effectively prioritize their time and effort. Covering multimedia, correspondence, legacy planning, password protection, photos, non-digital documents, financial and legal documents, and even social media archiving, this comprehensive text addresses how to get started and how to develop a plan for managing existing and future items.

Features include:


  • Value assessment exercises to help readers identify what is a preservation priority to them personally
  • Best practices for managing digital financial and legal documents
  • How to save things from multiple devices, as well as social media sites
  • Recommendations for scheduling maintenance activities and automating backup
  • Guidelines for creating a personal management plan so that users are prepared to handle new and existing documents, photos, and other digital material for ongoing access

After reading this short primer, readers will be ready to:

  1. better organize and identify what they already have in a digital form,
  2. have a personal plan for knowing what to discard and what to retain,
  3. know how to digitize papers, photographs, voicemail,
  4. preserve email and social media postings, and
  5. set up a workable long-term file naming and organizational structure.
This compact primer by librarian Condron outlines both the why and the how of approaching the mammoth task of organizing one’s digital life. In the preface, Cordon presents four simple, compelling reasons for taking on the project: loss avoidance, ease of sharing and collaboration, personal digital archiving, and ease of access during an emergency. The succeeding eight chapters systematically walk the reader through how to approach and execute the project. Chapters 1 and 2 are mandatory reading as they outline the guided assessment, or determining what you own and its value, and best practice for filenaming conventions and organizational structure. Readers may dip into the remaining chapters for tips specific to areas of interest, including legacy planning (your digital will), digital correspondence, photos, social-media accounts, legal documents, and other media. The short, straightforward chapters are broken up by useful illustrations, screenshots, and tips (Google Docs and backup files are not synonymous) and conclude with learning objectives or summary. Appendixes of blank forms and digital-archiving resources follow.