Building Companionship between Community and Personal Archiving: Strengthening Personal Digital Archiving Support in Community-Based Mobile Digitization Projects

Abstract

The interconnectedness between personal digital archiving (PDA) and community-based digital archiving provides an entry point for thinking about how to better bridge the two within single projects. Flexibility and sustainability are dimensions that warrant special consideration to support PDA within community-based digital archiving projects. This paper examines the flexibility and sustainability of two community-based mobile digitization projects (Culture in Transit and Georgia HomePLACE DigiKits) in supporting PDA. The assessment shows that the projects are in a good position to support PDA, with only some concerns about ensuring sustainable access to digitization equipment and sufficient guidance in long-term preservation. Drawing from this work, I propose three ways community-based mobile digitization projects can be redesigned to further strengthen their support for PDA without undermining their community-based objectives. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the value in considering connections and differences between community and personal archiving needs in current and future projects, and calls for further coordination of efforts and collaboration to build better collaboration between community and personal archiving.