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

by William Jones

Overview

Keeping Found Things Found: The Study and Practice of Personal Information Management is the first comprehensive book on new 'favorite child' of R&D at Microsoft and elsewhere, personal information management (PIM). It provides a comprehensive overview of PIM as both a study and a practice of the activities people do, and need to be doing, so that information can work for them in their daily lives.

It explores what good and better PIM looks like, and how to measure improvements. It presents key questions to consider when evaluating any new PIM informational tools or systems.

This book is designed for R&D professionals in HCI, data mining and data management, information retrieval, and related areas, plus developers of tools and software that include PIM solutions.

• Focuses exclusively on one of the most interesting and challenging problems in today's world
• Explores what good and better PIM looks like, and how to measure improvements
• Presents key questions to consider when evaluating any new PIM informational tools or systems

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780080554150
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	07/27/2010
Series:	The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Multimedia Information and Systems
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	448
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

William Jones is a research associate professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he manages the Keeping Found Things Found project. Dr. Jones contributed chapters on personal information management (PIM) to the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, the Handbook of Applied Cognition, and the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. He has presented numerous tutorials and courses on PIM, co-edited a book on PIM, and organized two PIM workshops, including an invitational sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Jones has published articles on basic research in cognitive psychology and more applied research in PIM, information retrieval, and human–computer interaction. Dr. Jones holds several patents relating to search and PIM. He received his doctorate in cognitive psychology from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Table of Contents

I. Foundations of Personal Information Management: Introduction: A study and a practice; A personal space of information; A framework for understanding PIM. II. Activities of Personal Information Management: Finding and re-finding: From need to information; Keeping and organizing: From information to need; Maintaining personal information for now and for later; Managing privacy and the flow of information; Measuring and evaluating a practice of PIM: Is it working?; Making sense of things. III: Solutions for PIM: Email goes away?; Search gets personal; PIM on the go; PIM on the Web; Bringing the pieces together. IV: Finding our way into the future. Appendix: Glossary of terms.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

First comprehensive book on new 'favorite child' of R&D at Microsoft and elsewhere, personal information management!

Editorial Reviews

We swim in information: in our computers, inboxes, Facebook pages, smartphones, digital cameras, MP3 players, everywhere. It's out of control. Taking back control is both an art and a science. It's called "personal information management" People hear that term, and they think: Microsoft Outlook. No. We mean something broader. Deeper. More than getting organized or even improving productivity: These days, managing your information is managing your very reality.

Keeping Found Things Found is about all of that. It offers "best practice," "infomanagement" techniques drawn from the latest research. What to save (and where). What to throw away (and when). Which new tools are worth the trouble (and which aren't).

But also: How should you think about your information? Can you use it in richer ways? What does it mean for your life? What should it mean? Important questions, raised -- and often answered -- in a fascinating book. Bill Camarda, from the January 2008 Read Only

"Keeping Found Things Found is the missing manual for 21st century literacy. We're at the epicenter of a rapidly expanding universe of personal information. Books, music, photos, videos, email, contacts, calendars, wills, bills, records, and receipts: how can we keep our piles and files from spiraling out of control? William Jones has the answer in this important book about finding our memories and organizing our lives. A must- read for designers, developers, librarians, and anyone else who cares about the future of information interaction." —Peter Morville, Author of Ambient Findability and Information Architecture for the World Wide Web

From the Publisher