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Personal Digital Archiving Day Kit
Planning and Organizing Your Event

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Introduction

Our photo albums, letters, home movies and paper documents are a vital link to the past. Personal information we create today has the same value. The only difference is that much of it is now digital. Chances are that you want to keep some digital photos, email and other files so that you—and your family—can look at them in the future. But preserving digital information is a new concept that most people have little experience with. These resources provide some tips to help make your personal “born digital” information last.

1. Plan your event:

  • Outline purpose and audience for event.
  • Organize a committee to help plan and execute your Personal Digital Archiving Day event.
  • Create a timeline of tasks and assign tasks to committee members.
  • Decide what type of PAD event you’d like to hold an Informational/Educational or an Instructional/Hands-on event.
    • Informational/Educational is a more generic type of event giving handouts and web resources to provide a starting point for archiving personal digital information.
    • Instructional/Hands-on will be more labor intensive and should include a specific educational component and possibly a speaker or expert to deliver a talk/demonstration.
  • Select a venue – ideally should be a public setting like a library, civic building, college or school setting.
  • Enlist the help of volunteers to set up and clean up materials and additional staff to work the event.
  • Hold a planning meeting for staff and volunteers so you can brief them on what has been planned, assigning roles and responsibilities and what to expect on the day.

Download our sample event planning checklist (MSWord)

2. Organize your event:

  • Determine necessary date/time to hold event.
  • Consider what will be needed for the room set up – tables, chairs, A/V equipment, internet access and signage to direct the public to your space/room.
  • Sketch room layout and plan where tables, speaker and material will be staged.
  • Create a budget for supplies, publicity, room rental, speakers, catering, photography or video.

Next:

Publicizing and Running your event

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