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

by Melody Karle

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:



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

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology

164 pages, Hardcover

Published February 24, 2017

About the author

Melody A. Karle (formerly Condron) is a librarian and library consortium manager at the Montana State Library. Previously she worked at the University of Houston and the Lincoln County Public Libraries in Montana, where she did everything from story time and technology training to genealogy research. She holds an MLS from the University of North Texas, a BA in Communications and Media Studies from Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. In 2020 she completed a certificate in Digital Curation. At home Melody is a vegetable gardener, Lego enthusiast, Scrabble player, family archivist, and animal rescuer.

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concise review: Excellent how-to on digital assets management. Includes material for the general public, including advice on disaster preparedness and family genealogy. Book stands out on topics such as file management, back-up, multi-media conversion and sharing. Librarians, gallery experts and archivists can also benefit from this well-organized and illustrated handbook. The e-book was simple to read and navigate on Adobe Digital reader. Recommended for those with an intermediate knowledge of computers and IT, as well as office organization.

Reviewers notes with highlights:


Tags Electronic records management, Personal archives management, Digital media, Digital communications #HowTo
c2017, ALA, LITA

Table of contents includes: Naming, structuring and organizing files ; financial, legal and medical documents ; correspondence, digital photographs ; Digital Media ; Social media, online sharing, and online accounts ; Non-digital materials, forms ; and bibliography

Thoughts, notes, pearls of wisdom:

"The truth is that there is no one "best way" to manage your files, because each of us have different needs and expectations. No one solution exists to address the common problems of having too many accounts, too many online systems, and too many digital documents."

How this book can help: *Know where you should spend your time. *learn about non-proprietary solutions.*Be aware of multiple strategies. *Be aware of many options.

Caveat: "The tools and directions in this book worked with operating systems in common use of late 2016, but computers and software are constantly changing." --Be adaptable! [xiii]

Bio: Reviewer is an academic librarian and has over a decade of experience with electronic records management. Is currently on the Institutional Repository Task Committee in search of digital solutions to the creation of an IR.

Chapter takeaways:

1. Getting started: Assess value ; Create location list ; Plan and backup (including maintenance) ; ignore, delete items where appropriate

2. Naming...files: Name & extension, be consistent, use underscore (not space). Names for browsing, searching, sorting. Version control. Tagging in Property field. Fix with Batch-rename. Folder structure & hierarchy (PC). **Email organization.

3. Legal, financial, medical docs: Hybrid backup. **Legacy planning for digital docs. Passwords & encryptions ; file sharing ; online accounts

4. Correspondence: Email, SMS, Voicemail. **Helpful for scholars, writers, archivists. Includes Outlook, Apple, GMail. Scheduling backups for both SMS and MMS. Android & iPhone.

5. Digital Photos: Manage volume, weed ; Organization ; Metadata, Name/label ; Storage ; Sharing. (CDs/DVDs, Flash drives, Memory cards and software (apps).

6. Other media: video, audio, genealogy, prob. files: *Compression of video files. (video files LARGE!!) *GEDCOM 4 genealogy. **Files that won't open. Fine conversion tool!--IMPORTANT CHAPTER!!

7. Social media, online sharing, online accounts: Facebook, Twitter, etc. Best practices for communal/group docs. Password tips

8. Non-Digital Materials: List, Organize, Weed, Prioritize, Digitize. (Speed, space, obsolescence, Impending projects) Deadlines? Outsource? Cost???!!!

9. Blank forms: Helpful!

10. Bibliography (Annotated!!): very, very short! Index (helpful!)

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great resource for a variety of people - from genealogists to librarians to folks who just want to organize digital photos to share with others. It includes chapters on getting started - making a plan and finding your files; how to name and organize your files; how to deal with different types of files - including legal, financial and medical documents, correspondence such as email and voicemail; as well social media files. There is a good section on organizing digital photographs including the very sage advice that first one must whittle the 1000s of throwaway photos we take everyday down to the precious few that will tell the story most succinctly. It's a small book, which does not try to solve every problem, but instead provides an overview without overwhelming the reader. Additional resources and organizing sheets make up the last sections.

[Hom Sack · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick read mainly due to knowing most of the advice here. Nevertheless, they are instructive and useful.

[Joann Calabrese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practical and easy to follow advice for making sense of the digital overload. I am finding it very helpful!

[Mysteryfan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extremely useful book for anyone seeking to organize paper documents and photos as well as the online materials they've created. I knew a fair amount of the information but I still got useful tips here. It starts right in with the need to pick what you preserve and weeding out the garbage. Most useful to me was the discussion of deciding on storage media and file structure. Then it proceeded to specific types of documents. Legal and family papers, photographs and videos, even social media are all covered. It's a good reference too. The book provides a summary at the end of each chapter and suggests additional reading.