• Identify all your digital files on cameras, computers, and removable media such as memory cards or external hard drives.

• Include any files on the web or in the cloud.

• Review social media platforms.

• Locate significant correspondence in email.

• Pick the files you feel are especially important.

• You can pick a few or many.

• If there are multiple versions of important files, save the ones with highest quality, final versions, or drafts that document process in a notable way.

• Give individual files descriptive file names.

• Tag photos with names of people and descriptive subjects.

• Create a directory/folder structure on your computer to organize the files you have selected.

• Write a brief description of the directory structure and the files.

• Make at least two copies of your selected files—more copies are better.

• Back up copies on different media.

  • One copy can stay on your computer.

  • Another can be saved to DVDs, CDs, portable hard drives, or thumb drives.

  • Back up another copy in the cloud (Dropbox, Google drive, Amazon Web Services), or using an external RAID drive.

• Store copies in different locations that are as physically far apart as practical. If disaster strikes one location, your files in the other place should be safe. The cloud counts.

• Put a copy of the file inventory with your important papers in a secure location.

• Check your files at least once a year to make sure you can read them.

• Create new media copies every five years or when necessary to avoid data loss.

• The 3-2-1 rule

  • Make three copies

  • Have at least two of the copies on two different types of media

  • Keep one copy in a different location from where you live / work

Remember:

It’s good to manage things yourself. Storage in the cloud or a third party company has no guarantees. Make them one of the options for backups, not the only option. Stay organized, save multiple copies in multiple places, and refresh your media.

Need a quick way to preserve public AV?

• The Internet Archive is best known for their Wayback Machine that can be used to access historical websites, as discussed in the web archiving portion of this LibGuide. It also provides free storage and access to audio and video files, as well as books. All uploaded content is made publicly accessible, so this resource should only be used for audio and video that you have the right and intention to share.
  Create an account and upload your files here.

Guides for Audio and Video Files

• Transferring Video from Tape, DVD or Camera to Your Computer

  Guide from the Library of Congress

• Recommended Format Specifications: Audio

  Format specifications recommended by the Library of Congress for audio works.

• Recommended Format Specifications: Moving Image

  Format specifications recommended by the Library of Congress for moving image works.

See our guide on web archiving basics. 

• Stanford University's ePADD

• Preserve this Podcast

Social media platforms require different approaches to extracting data and files. Consider the type of information that should be captured. Is it only video from your Youtube channel, or are the comments part of the work? Most digital platforms will have documentation for how to download your personal data but if you are concerned about accessing the account as it originally appeared, a better approach may be to use a web archiving tool like Webrecorder.io.

Examples of platform specific directions for downloading data:

• Facebook

• Instagram

• Tumblr

• Personal Digital Archiving at the Library of Congress

• Digital Preservation Best Practices and Guidelines

• Scanning Your Personal Collections

• Choosing a Creative Commons License

• Activists' Guide to Archiving Video

• Metropolitan New York Library Council

• Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York

• Xfr Collective blog

• METRO Studio 599 blog

• Metropolitan Archivist blog

• Library Bytegeist podcast

• Digitization 101

• The Signal: Digital Preservation Blog at the Library of Congress