Personal electronic archives: collecting the digital me

The purpose of this paper is to show that nowadays much of an individual's life is recorded and documented in electronic form. This has major implications for manuscript and archival collections, which are explored in this paper. The records of significant individuals have always been collected by libraries and other cultural institutions. Until fairly recently, these records were largely paper‐based, and sophisticated approaches to their management have been developed over many years.

There has been some previous work done on identifying the main issues relating to collecting personal electronic archives, but new forms of personal records are continually emerging. This paper surveys the current situation.

This is an area which is rapidly growing in importance and complexity. It deserves more attention, particularly in a library setting. There is still a lack of practical investigations aimed at developing guidelines for best practice and procedures for handling this kind of material.

The issues for managing personal electronic archives are discussed, and lines for further research are suggested.