Keeping Found Things Found
William Jones, who is one of the fellows behind the project Keeping Found Things Found, is giving an overview of the project and personal information management at the Special Libraries Association Annual Conference. I remembered writing about the work before and was suprised that it was back in December 2003.
One piece of irony is immediately visible: his slides are dated May 17, 2006. Does he have problems keeping the current date found?
Is it (personal information) management? (Personal) information management?
What makes information ours is any combination of:
- information we want
- information we use
- information we sent
- information we received
- something we put away
- etc
Mapping information is one way to keep it found. We store things because they’re useful or they might be useful.
I was a little surprised when he suggested that we drop our daily news subscriptions because news does not change that much day-to-day. The day you miss the news might be the day the key thing happens.
He asked how many of us use Gmail and Hotmail, then asked us to show hands if we like Hotmail better. No hands went up.
Integration and visibility are vital aspects of success. If something is in front of our faces, we’re more likely to pay attention to it. If we can figure out early on how to integrate it with our lives, we’re more likely to use it. We also need support.
Managing every day is a trick. “To live and to be active … is to have projects.”
“Paper has a long battery life.”
