Managing the Digital You: Where and How to Keep and Organize Your Digital Life

by Melody Karle

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442278882
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	02/24/2017
Series:	LITA Guides
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	164
File size:	11 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Melody Condron has worked in libraries for over eight years, and has managed many data organization projects both on the job and in her personal work with genealogy and history projects. Melody received a Master’s in Library Science with a focus in Information Organization from the University of North Texas, and a B.A. in Communications and Media Studies from Penn State.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

1 Getting Started; Finding Your Files, Assessing Value, and Making a Plan 1

2 Naming, Structuring, and Organizing Files 19

3 Legal, Financial, and Medical Documents 35

4 Correspondence: Email, SMS, and Voicemail 51

5 Digital Photographs 73

6 Other Media: Video, Audio, Genealogy, and Problem Files 99

7 Social Media, Online Sharing, and Online Accounts 111

8 Non-Digital Materials 129

Appendix A Blank Forms 141

Appendix B A Short Annotated Bibliography of Personal Digital Archiving Resources 145

Index 147

About the Author 149

Editorial Reviews

Managing the Digital You is an excellent guide on digital asset management. A great resource for the general public and professionals alike, anyone from genealogists to librarians to nostalgic family members can benefit from Condron’s advice. This is a well-organized, simple to read how-to manual for managing existing and future digital items. While providing a general approach to personal digital archiving, this book also includes specifics, from password protection to multimedia conversion and even management of social media sites among other interesting tricks of the trade.

Archives and Records: The Journal of the Archives and Records Association

Gone are the piles of boxes in the attic. Nowadays, our life is stored in multiple digital formats in dozens of different places–email, voicemail, music, photos, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, phones, tablets, CDs, and more. Do you know where your data is stored and do you care what happens to it all? That 's what this book is all about.... Thoughout the book the author reminds you to think about what you are keeping and wy. She makes suggestions, but leaves you to determine exactly what you want to do. If you have any interest in keeping your digital 'stuff,' this book will get you on the right path. The actual work is up to you.

Online Searcher

Folders, floppy disks, flash drives - managing information has been a nuisance for decades. The 21st century added new challenges: texts on one device, emails on another, photos in the cloud. Managing the Digital You shows a practical way to rein in your data while keeping your sanity.

Elisabeth Kibler

By cleverly weaving professional best practices, and acknowledging that the digital you undoubtedly has personal habits for handling your stuff that are flexible, but not likely completely reversible, Melody Condron has created a valuable, contemporary guide for a more efficient, effective and vital digital life.

Theresa M. Gamble

Managing the Digital You is an excellent tool for coping with the volume of incoming data that we all deal with on a daily basis. Encompassing subjects of correspondence, financial and legal documents, legacy planning, multimedia, nondigital documents, password protection, photos, and social media archiving, this resource provides a clear path to avoiding electronic mayhem. Creating a system for digital management means simplification of life; files are organized for finding, photos will be in order, useless information deleted. After the preface, eight chapters categorize topics on how to succeed in cleaning up and sorting your digital chaos. Chapters 1 and 2 provide readers with a logical place to begin and an assessment of individual needs. Beyond introductory information, later chapters are unambiguous with titles such as ‘Legal, Financial, and Medical Documents’ (chapter 3) or ‘Digital Photographs’ (chapter 5). Text is supported with figures and tables throughout, all black and white. Visuals are not eye-catching but provide the visual documentation necessary. Summaries and bibliographic notes conclude each chapter. Two appendixes provide additional resources and a brief index offers entry to subjects such as backup, disaster preparedness, and file formats. Google, Microsoft Office, Photoshop, and Twitter are just some of the platforms discussed in relation to organization. This title is one that most anyone should have on the shelf (or, yes, downloaded on your digital device!). Better yet, open it up, read a chapter, and get digitally organized! Highly recommended.

American Reference Books Annual

Managing the Digital You is targeted at individuals, but institutions and organizations will also find its practical advice to be very useful. One of the best features of the book is that while all the chapters fit together to create a comprehensive plan, each chapter is very useful on an individual level. Where was this book when I was first used a computer?

Samantha Pierson

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.

Booklist

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.

Booklist