Keeping Found Things Found: The Study and Practice of Personal Information Management (eBook)

Front Cover 1
Keeping Found Things Found 4
Copyright Page 5
Contents 8
Preface 12
Contributors 17
Chapter 1. A study and a practice 19
1.1 Keeping found things found 21
1.2 An ideal and the reality 24
1.3 A brief history of PIM 27
1.4 Who benefits from better PIM and how? 30
1.5 A study and a practice 31
1.6 Looking forward: A map for this book 32
Chapter 2. A personal space of information 39
2.1 Starting out 42
2.2 What is information to us? 45
2.3 How is information personal? 50
2.4 The information item and its form 53
2.5 Defining a personal space of information 57
2.6 Making sense of the PSI 62
2.7 Looking back, looking forward 67
Chapter 3. A framework for personal information management 71
3.1 Starting out 73
3.2 Perspectives on personal information management 76
3.3 PIM activities to map between information and need 77
3.4 PIM-related activities and PIM-related areas 84
3.5 Weaving PIM activities together 89
3.6 Looking back, looking forward 92
Chapter 4. Finding and re-finding: From need to information 95
4.1 Starting out 97
4.2 Getting oriented 99
4.3 Everyday finding: Death by a thousand look-ups 106
4.4 Finding is multistep 110
4.5 The limitations in ideal dialogs of finding 122
4.6 Wayfinding through the PSI 124
4.7 Looking back, looking forward 131
Chapter 5. Keeping and organizing: From information to need 137
5.1 Starting out 139
5.2 Getting oriented 142
5.3 Everyday keeping and organizing: To each his own 143
5.4 Keeping is multifaceted 146
5.5 The limitations of future perfect visions 151
5.6 PICing our battles 155
5.7 Looking back, looking forward 167
Chapter 6. Maintaining for now and for later 169
6.1 Starting out 171
6.2 Getting oriented 173
6.3 Maintaining for now 177
6.4 Maintaining for later 183
6.5 Maintaining for our lives and beyond 188
6.6 Looking back, looking forward 193
Chapter 7. Managing privacy and the flow of information 195
7.1 Starting out 197
7.2 Getting oriented 199
7.3 Managing the outflow 203
7.4 Managing the inflow 212
7.5 Staying in the flow 219
7.6 Looking back, looking forward 224
Chapter 8. Measuring and evaluating 227
8.1 Starting out 229
8.2 Getting oriented 231
8.3 A yardstick for measuring PIM practice elements 233
8.4 What can research tell us about methods of measuring and evaluating in our practices of PIM? 239
8.5 Measuring and evaluating in real life 247
8.6 Can self-study of PIM practices contribute to the larger study of PIM? 253
8.7 Looking back, looking forward 256
Chapter 9. Making sense of things 259
9.1 Starting out 261
9.2 Getting oriented 262
9.3 Making sense as outcome vs. activity 268
9.4 Making sense of things as a PIM activity 274
9.5 Methods for making sense 280
9.6 Looking back, looking forward 284
Chapter 10. Email disappears? 287
10.1 Starting out: Is email a very successful failure? 289
10.2 PIM problems in email: The one–two punch 291
10.3 PIM activities in email 296
10.4 Future visions of email 301
10.5 Looking back, looking forward 313
Chapter 11. Search gets personal 315
11.1 Starting out 317
11.2 Search-as-interaction 320
11.3 Search-as-technology 324
11.4 Making search more personal 327
11.5 Wayfinding and search 330
11.6 Looking back, looking forward 334
Chapter 12. PIM on the go 335
12.1 Starting out 337
12.2 Getting oriented 340
12.3 A foreseeable future 342
12.4 What to expect from PIM-on-the-go? 353
12.5 Looking back, looking forward 361
Chapter 13. PIM on the Web 363
13.1 Starting out 365
13.2 Getting oriented 366
13.3 A foreseeable future? 368
13.4 What to expect from PIM-on-the-Web 371
13.5 Looking back, looking forward 383
Chapter 14. Bringing the pieces together 385
14.1 Starting out 387
14.2 Getting oriented 389
14.3 Stories of synergy 391
14.4 Kinds of integration 396
14.5 Enabling unifications 397
14.6 Looking back, looking forward 402
Chapter 15. Finding our way in(to) the future 403
15.1 Starting out 405
15.2 To the future 406
15.3 In the future 411
15.4 On our way 416
References 420
Index 440