Developing a Meaningful Digital Self-Archiving Model: Archival Theory vs. Natural Behavior in the Minds of Carolina Project

This paper will review the findings from a research project concluded in 2004, which had the primary goal of learning more about the natural behaviors of people choosing materials for inclusion in a digital archive. Project participants, retiring faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had a number of tasks to perform. They had to 1) survey and choose the materials to include in the archive; 2) develop a “collection development plan” defining the nature of their materials, their intended audience, and the organizational scheme of their collection; 3) provide materials for digitization; 4) supply metadata for the digitized materials; and 5) write a “finding aid” for their collection. The research team digitized the materials and developed a demonstration repository website for the participants. This paper will focus on the disconnect between traditional archival theory and the users’ natural behavior; and the challenges of developing an archival collection given current digital repository software.