Monday, May 13, 2013

Personal Archiving for Digital Files


If someone asks you how you save your digital files or photos and you say "well, it's on my desktop", it's time to talk about how to really save your digital files.  I went to a technology conference recently and attended a workshop on personal digital archiving and found out very quickly that saving on your desktop is NOT really saving your files. It really is a scary thought for those of us who aren't tech experts. What to do?
The Library of Congress has a great website on personal archiving of digital files
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/
There are great tips on preserving digital photos, audio, videos, email and websites.
Some of us have worried for years about preserving family photos and other family paper documents.  And that is still a concern.  But now it seems everything is digital.  Our photos are on our computers, in our phones  or on our cameras which can all be lost or damaged.  Again, a scary thought for someone who has MANY albums of family photos but hasn't printed a photo in a decade.