Workbook on Digital Private Papers > Working with record creators > The nature of personal digital archives
The nature of personal digital archives
Factors affecting the depth and breadth of personal archives
Various factors can affect how comprehensively an archive documents all aspects of its creator's life. Concern about privacy and confidentiality restricted the scope of material deposited as part of the Paradigm project. Another pertinent issue, particularly during an election year when much of the material was being accessioned, is a politician's lack of time for preserving personal archives. However, during the course of the project's work, it became clear that there are a number of factors which can affect the survival and shape of personal archives.
Individuality
Examples from Paradigm's digital and paper accessions show that some personal archives document their 'creators' more comprehensively than others. Despite certain similarities between Paradigm's participants, in terms of role and routine, the 'personal' element, or 'individuality' of personal papers should not be forgotten. As Sue McKemmish expounds in 'Evidence of Me', her seminal paper on personal record keeping, individuals exhibit a broad range of 'personal record keeping behaviours': some individuals keep every letter they ever receive, others keep nothing and rely solely on memory. The vast majority of people fall somewhere in-between these two extremes. The heterogeneity of people, records and systems means that Paradigm's dealings with each participant have varied to some degree. The procedures adopted by curators of personal digital archives will need to be sufficiently flexible to take account of this.
Selection for preservation by the creator
It is not only what is routinely saved in the course of business that influences the extent and individuality of a person's records, it is also what is volunteered for long-term preservation. By way of example, the office of one Paradigm project participant permitted the entire contents of an email inbox to be copied and archived (aside from a few confidential files); this is in marked contrast to other participants for whom email was definitely off-limits. It is the very recentness of these records and the fact that emails and other digital records are easily forwarded, which makes office staff nervous, particularly in the unforgiving world of politics.
Third parties in personal archives
Political 'personal' archives like those accessioned by Paradigm are distinctive in that they are not generally the work of one person. Rather they are a joint enterprise with much of the day-to-day correspondence and office papers being created by the MP's Personal Assistant, or the constituency office staff. A large amount of the material is also generated by individuals and organisations outside the employ of the politician. This includes correspondence from constituents, colleagues, special interest groups and lobbyists, as well as briefings, research papers, etc., circulated by the central political party office. This means that there are third party interests besides the politicians' to consider, such as privacy and intellectual property rights, and this is likely to be the case with most personal digital archives.
Many Paradigm accessions were contemporary records and were inevitably likely to contain more personal data about living individuals as defined by the Data Protection Act (1998) than archival materials accessioned much later after creation. Politicians were made aware of the exemption in the Act which covers the activities of archives and libraries in this area (s. 33), but some participants raised ethical concerns that the creators of the records might not agree to the placing of their email in an archive. This is interesting as 'paper' letters from third parties are captured in private archives held at archives and libraries the world over. Both the recent date and digital format of the material acquired by Paradigm increases the sensitivity of this issue.
For a politician of the governing party, matters are further complicated by the potential for overlap between the content preserved in a personal archive and that contained in public records preserved under legislative requirements by The National Archives. In such instances, the curator of the personal archive would need to refer to The National Archives regarding the classification of similar material. Any public records included in a politician's personal archive would not be acquired as part of the archive.
Technological constraints
The types of digital records that are created and filed for medium to long term preservation are also dependent on the computer expertise and technical know how of politicians and their key office staff. For example, some offices are familiar with presentation software, PDF creation, website development, desktop publishing and digital cameras; others are less comfortable with emerging technology and use their computers for little more than email and word processing. Another factor impacting on the extent of material saved is the quantity of storage space available. Emails are particularly vulnerable to deletion due to inbox quotas.
