Not just a gift. It's history in the making. Family history is important. Photos, videos, aged documents, and cherished papers--these are the memories that you want to save. And they need a better home than a cardboard box. Creating Family Archives is a book written by an archivist for you, your family, and friends, taking you step-by-step through the process of arranging and preserving your own family archives. It’s the first book of its kind offered to the public by the Society of American Archivists. Gathering up the boxes of photos and years of video is a big job. But this fascinating and instructional book will make it easier and, in the end, much better.

When it comes to personal collections, we live in exciting times. Individuals are living their lives in ways that are increasingly mediated by digital technologies — digital photos and video footage, music, the social web, e-mail,and other day-to-day interactions. Although this mediation presents many technical challenges for long-term preservation, it also provides unprecedented opportunities for documenting the lives of individuals.

Ten authors — Robert Capra, Adrian Cunningham, Tom Hyry, Leslie Johnston, Christopher (Cal) Lee, Sue McKemmish, Cathy Marshall, Rachel Onuf, Kristina Spurgin, and Susan Thomas — share their expertise on the various aspects of the management of digital information in I, Digital: Personal Collections in the Digital Era.

The volume is divided in three parts:

Part 1 is devoted to conceptual foundations and motivations.

Part 2 focuses on particular types, genres, and forms of personal traces; areas of further study; and new opportunities for appraisal and collection.

Part 3 addresses strategies and practices of professionals who work in memory institutions.

Chapters explore issues,challenges, and opportunities in the management of personal digital collections, focusing primarily on born-digital materials generated and kept by individuals.

Contributions to I, Digital represent the depth in thinking about how cultural institutions can grapple with new forms of documentation, and how individuals manage--and could better manage--digital information that is part of contemporary life.