Part of a shelf in my bookcase is taken up with hardcopies of a few reports and documents that I wrote or had a hand in writing. I’ve kept these because the hardcopies were available and I feel they are substantial pieces of work (they fall into the category of ‘Items that the owner has written, produced, assembled or made a significant contribution to’ as documented in the paper produced in the Digital Age Artefacts journey). However, these are just items that I came across in the course of doing digital preservation work on my work file collection; I have produced many other reports and documents over my working career, some of which I feel are just as substantial.

In thinking through what I want to do with this material, I’ve concluded that I don’t really want the hardcopy except in particularly special cases. However, I would like to have electronic versions of all the major reports I’ve produced in order to be able to look through them from time to time, to see how my ideas developed, and to enjoy the satisfaction of achievement. So, my plan is to use my CV to guide me through the various companies I’ve worked for and assignments I’ve undertaken, and to search my work files for reports I may have produced in each one. I’ll take an electronic copy of some of those that I find and give each one a serial number in the file title. The files will be recorded in an index in chronological order, and stored on my iPad. At the end of the process, any hardcopies that I’ve decided to keep will be placed into a box file on the bookshelf.