Sent to you by pakurilecz via Google Reader: Organizing Personal
Digital Stuff via Reading Archives by Richard J. Cox on 2/18/09
Aimee Baldridge, Organize Your Digital Life: How to Store Your
Photographs, Music, Videos, & Personal Documents in a Digital World
(Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2009).

Organize Your Digital Life is an example of a user-friendly publication
intended to assist individuals maintain their personal archives.
Baldridge states that the book gives you “what you need to organize
your digital life [and that these actions] are the same things you need
to organize everything else: to know what the organizational tools
available are, to be realistic about which ones you will use
consistently, and to put them to work” (p. 7). Baldridge does not mince
words with the options: “If the prospect of getting organized isn’t
enough of a carrot for you, consider the stick: Your hard drive will
crash. Discs will become unreadable. It’s all just a matter of time”
(p. 7). She also mentions that all the non-digital stuff will
deteriorate as well.

The book provides very practical advice, guiding readers through how to
inventory materials, making decisions about what to digitize,
presenting self-study questions to reflect on, checklists about
technical issues and costs (and other matters such as key personal
documents needing to be maintained), preparing for disasters,
recovering lost digital media, evaluating various kinds of equipment
and what and when to use such devices, referencing to preservation and
technical standards, and other advice. While I recommend that those
working in the nitty-gritty levels of digital records and information
might want to examine with a fine-tooth comb the value of the advice
offered by this author, there are indicators that Baldridge is
sensitive to archival matters. For example, she provides a brief
section on “archiving on discs,” mentioning the standard for optical
discs. “Without reference to a standard, terms such as ‘archival’ can
mean whatever a manufacturer decides is appropriate.” Acknowledging
that the ones labeled archival are probably better, she provides some
cautionary advice: “For archiving purposes, never use generic discs or
those sold under office supply store brands” (p. 32).

A lot of what is found in this volume is just good, old-fashioned
commonsense. However, such commonsense is still needed.
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