Motivations for personal recordkeeping practices: the roles of personal factors, recordkeeping literacy and the affordances of records

Abstract

Why do individuals create and keep records? Little research has been done into the factors that motivate individuals to make records. This article uses the example of the personal records created by Bangladeshi rural women who participated in a development project to investigate the roles that personal choices and external influences play in the development of recordkeeping practices. By conducting interviews with participants after the end of the project, the author obtained some insights into the factors that encouraged them to create records during the project and the reasons why they continued or stopped doing it after the end of the project and about the role played by external actors, in particular local staff from non-governmental organisations, in influencing their recordkeeping practices. The author shows that the participants started creating and keeping records when they understood the importance that these records could have for them in the future and that the women who persevered with personal recordkeeping practices were those who were more educated and more information literate. On the other hand, the participants who wrote down information because they were encouraged to do so stopped doing it when the regular information flow ended, and they were no longer encouraged to capture information. The author argues that the factors that encourage individuals to create and keep records differ depending on the affordances that the records provide to them. Whereas external actors can play an important role in motivating people to keep records as evidence, for records that are kept for their informational content, personal motivations and recordkeeping literacy skills play a determinant role.