__         __     ______     ______        ______   ______     ______     __  __    
/\ \       /\ \   /\  ___\   /\  __ \      /\  == \ /\  ___\   /\  ___\   /\ \/ /    
\ \ \____  \ \ \  \ \___  \  \ \  __ \     \ \  _-/ \ \  __\   \ \ \____  \ \  _"-.  
 \ \_____\  \ \_\  \/\_____\  \ \_\ \_\     \ \_\    \ \_____\  \ \_____\  \ \_\ \_\ 
  \/_____/   \/_/   \/_____/   \/_/\/_/      \/_/     \/_____/   \/_____/   \/_/\/_/ 
               

Project: Personal Archiving and Preservation through Social Media

Description: This project is from INFO 601 Foundations of Information with Prof. Leanne Bowler in Fall 2019 (attended in-person). Our final papers were open ended.

Role: This project was completed individually.

Methods: Over the course of the semester, I became interested in the concept of the archive of the average person, and chose to write about social media as a contemporary, unintentional (or intentional) digital archive. This paper discusses the personal data one generates on social media and argues for its recognition and preservation as a personal archive.

Rationale: The thought patterns explored in this paper were influenced by the larger discussions in our class about the concepts of archival information and indefinite material storage. In turn, the paper also discusses the keepers of knowledge and organizational systems and who decides what information is retained for the future.