Preserving Your Digital Life

If you lost your house to flood, fire, or some other natural disaster, would you also lose all your priceless family history and photos? We all use digital files and pictures everyday, and many of us are preserving important parts of our life "digitally". But these digital files and images are fundamentally different than books or photos. You can always open a book and read it, or look at a photo in an album. Unfortunately, the same is not true with digital objects. Formats change, software becomes obsolete, or files simply get lost amid hard drive clutter. In a very real sense, digital materials can be more fragile than physical ones. Here are some topics for you to think about when designing a strategy for ensuring that your digital life is safe and available.

Preserving E-mail

Save and manage e-mail like any other important digital file. Save important personal e-mail text and header information on a hard drive or storage disk as simple text files. Check if your employer allows you to save work-related e-mail. Also consider printing important e-mails.

Metadata

Labels help you to find and organize objects. The more information you record about a file, the better chance you will have of finding it later. Use descriptive keywords and titles. The term "metadata" means essentially "data about data". Learn how metadata is stored in the files you use, and what tools you can use for searching. As your "digital life" collection gets large, it is important to be able to efficiently find what you want.

Computer Files

You've heard it many times, but -- have an established backup plan and procedure -- so all your important files, photographs and other media, are copied to CDs, DVDs or an external hard drive. It is best to make more than one copy, and to store the copies in different locations. This means storing copies in different physical locations, such as a copy at home, another copy at work, another copy with a family member, and perhaps copies online as well.

Storage Disks

Never depend on rewritable discs for long-term storage. Don't use stickers to label discs. Store disks in containers that are protected from heat, humidity and physical deformation. There is no guarantee that the backup program you used will always work. Have you ever had the experience of "upgrading" your operating system - say from Windows XP to Windows Vista and finding that something no longer works? You must check your archive and migrate to new formats if needed.