The Behavior and Perception of Personal Digital Archiving of Chinese University Students

Abstract

It is widely received that personal records are a kind of unique documentary evidence for both individual and the society. Thus, same care is required for the preservation of personal records as for public records. While personal archiving in the analogue environment has been extensively studied by scholars from different fields, the rapidly changing web environment are raising new challenges on personal information behavior, further, personal digital archiving. To effectively address these challenges, it is important to first understand what the individuals’ perception and behavior of personal digital archiving are. The proposed presentation aims to contribute to this knowledge by discussing the preliminary results of a mixed-method study on the behavior and perception of personal digital archiving of Chinese university students. More specifically, the mixed-method study is approached sequentially by first using a web-based questionnaire to investigate Chinese university students’ perception of personal digital archiving when using email and blogs, which is followed by a semi-structured interview of information professionals to solicit their opinions on the results of the web-based questionnaire and the role of information professionals for facilitating personal digital archiving. The results of this study will shed light on Chinese university students’ awareness of personal records preservation, the measures used for personal records preservation, the difficulties encountered, and responsibilities of different stakeholders (e.g., individual, web service provider, and information professionals) for personal digital archiving. This knowledge will help identify focal areas for future personal digital archiving research.