The need for shared personal/family archivists

Technologies have made it easy for individuals or families to generate and accumulate information collections with similar volume and complexity as institutional libraries or archives in the past. A survey was conducted to investigate people’s needs in managing and preserving personal/family information collections. The survey data show that many people have trouble in finding, sharing, preserving, and accessing personal/family information collections. Although some libraries and archives provide guidance, training, or equipment to assist people in managing and preserving their collections, very few people consider those services to be sufficient. These findings indicate an unmet need for a new type of archivists that serves the information management and preservation needs of individuals and families. This paper discusses mechanisms to develop a workforce of personal/family archivists and to match the supply and demand of personal/family archivist, as well as future work to further assess the need for shared personal/family archivists.