Seeking an ideal solution to the management of personal information collections

Introduction. This paper reports on the observation of twenty participants engaged on personal projects. The goal was to understand how people organize and structure a personal information collection. Method. Selected participants were asked to choose a relatively new project that they would likely be working on and completing in six to eight weeks. Participants were interviewed three times over the study period and the interviews were transcribed. Analysis. Members of the research team independently read each interview transcript, then met to discuss their independent analyses of the data. Through several iterations of this process, the researchers developed the themes and working definitions for their coding of the transcripts. Results. Participants changed the organization of their collections by adding new folders or categories, increasing the number of separate piles for information, or adding tags. They collected more information for their project than anticipated and found their initial plans for managing this information inadequate. Some abandoned their collections, while others faced the inadequacy of their strategies with resignation. Conclusion. Participants often described the need for a system which allowed for greater integration of their information. They assigned human qualities - an intelligent automated helper that would magically solve the challenges they face with the management of a personal information collection.