Digital Archaeology

Personal Digital Archaeology is a framework that seeks to help people capture, preserve and share their life stories, through sustainable learning material. It also seeks to help people rescue digital artifacts from obsolete formats. (Ex: VHS tapes and old computer disks, from items that are found in old boxes, or electronic media that are inherited from earlier generations.)

One goal of digital archaeology is to teach practical skills - another goal is to explore how to develop methods and tools to help rescue digital artifacts from obsolete formats, devices and operating systems; in essence, a personal digital forensics, ideally a partnership between computer museums, academic institutions, and partners to help make the knowledge available (ex: libraries). There are also opportunities to explore the development of tools to help with capturing and preserving "current" media.

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What is Digital Archaeology?

Personal Digital Archaeology is a framework that seeks to help people capture, preserve and share their life stories, through sustainable learning material. It also seeks to help people rescue digital artifacts from obsolete formats. (Ex: VHS tapes and old computer disks, from items that are found in old boxes, or electronic media that are inherited from earlier generations.)

One goal of digital archaeology is to teach practical skills - another goal is to explore how to develop methods and tools to help rescue digital artifacts from obsolete formats, devices and operating systems; in essence, a personal digital forensics, ideally a partnership between computer museums, academic institutions, and partners to help make the knowledge available (ex: libraries). There are also opportunities to explore the development of tools to help with capturing and preserving "current" media.

Visual Introduction:

I was pretty excited about recovering this picture. When I was in high school, my Grandfather Miller had a sense of fun, and indulged me when I asked him to put on a tie-dye t-shirt and take a picture with the guitar. When he passed away I inherited his computer and this is what got me thinking about digital archaeology - the idea of helping people recover digital artifacts.

Here I am about the same time as the picture of my grandpa. I have a dream of playing Jimi Hendrix' version of the National Anthem at the 100th anniversary of Woodstock, and I'm hoping to convince Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft) to agree to let me use Hendrix' original guitar, which is owned by the Experience Music Project museum in Seattle.

The Life Story Suitcase is a concept for helping people to gather their life stories. This is my other grandfather. I'm thankful the Armistice was declared on Grandpa's birthday and that he got to come back home, and that i got to eventually exist. So I'm thankful to be alive, and would like to help people capture, preserve and share their life stories.

Anyone can become a personal digital archaeologist, by learning how to do something like scanning pictures -- you can do it for a friend, or for your family - but you can also make a business out of it. Easy to understand training can be developed that will allow local people to become certified "personal digital archaeologists", such as moms who may already be into digital scrapbooking. The idea is to help people gather courage, put on their "Indiana Jones" hats, and help their communities to capture, preserve and share their family stores - and get paid for it, or donate their services, as they wish.

Technical folks might also enjoy reading a draft of a short article that appeared in an online convergence journal, called "The Case for Personal Digital Archaeology".