Cathy Marshall in Syracuse

One of my research heros, Cathy Marshall, is giving a talk at the iSchool later this week. Those of you who attended my annotation talk in April heard me mention some of her research, and I’ve eagerly awaiting the arrival of her new book, Reading and Writing the Electronic Book (which I checked out this morning!) as I revise my proposal and move forward with my dissertation research.

Her talk on Friday is on a different topic– the problems of preserving digital ephemera. Should be very interesting. Here are the details:

Friday, May 14, 2010
Brown Bag Presentation2:30-4 pm
Katzer Room 347 Hinds Hall

Cathy Marshall “The Sustainability of Everyday Digital Stuff”

Everyday digital artifacts—email, IMs, blogs, photos, financial records, tweets, videos, and the like—are an important part of the historical record as well as essential to the intellectual and emotional lives of individuals, families, and communities. Yet maintaining these ad hoc digital collections is proving to be difficult for a number of reasons. Why is it so challenging for us to maintain our digital stuff, and what should we do about it? I’ll sort out some empirical evidence that illustrates the challenges of personal digital archiving, and explore its implications for personal information management technologies.