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

by William Jones

Keeping Found Things 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Design, Business, Library Science, Reference, Self Help

448 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2007

About the author

William Jones is a Research Associate Professor Emeritus in the Information School at the University of Washington. He received his doctorate in 1982 from Carnegie-Mellon University for research into how human memory works.

Dr. Jones has written the book “Keeping Found Things Found: The Study and Practice of Personal Information Management” (2007) and has also edited the book “Personal Information Management” (with co-editor Jaime Teevan). Dr. Jones has written invited chapters on PIM for ARIST and for the Handbook of Applied Cognition. He has given numerous invited tutorials and organized two workshops on PIM including an invitational workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation and a follow-on workshop in connection with SIGIR 2006 (http://pim.ischool.washington.edu/).

Dr. Jones is getting tired of writing about PIM and hopes to write a book about something completely different some day (such as an updated story about a boy flying atop a goose across Sweden…).

Reviews

[David Mann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book would be better. I found it vague, repetitive, and not practical. It doesn't help that it was written when people were still using PDAs like the PalmPilot for PIM. Although some of the book's predictions are prescient, such as predicting the downfall of PCs and the all-engrossing nature of smart phones, some are not that profound. A smart phone feature to automatically hold calls when you are in an important meeting is touted several times during the book. I guess turning off the ringer is too complicated. The book presents dozens of ways we can lose information, but few real suggestions on how to prevent that loss.

I guess I was also annoyed that it is so "textbooky." Sidebars are in different colors for each chapter (the white text on yellow chapter was unreadable). There is so much padding that you could use the book as a pillow. About the only useful idea I got from the book is the distinction between reference collections and project collections of data. A lot of the focus of the book is on application-neutral search functions (i.e. searching for something simultaneously in email, documents, the web). This is already implemented in features like the Mac's spotlight search. In other words, a lot of the wishlist for the future of PIM in the book is already here. Not the book's fault, but it definitely makes the book less useful in 2017 than it was when written. I sometimes enjoy the nostalgia of reading older books on computing, but when the book gets mired down by subjects like the author's criticisms of iTunes v 6.0, I just get bored.

I am interested in PIM, so normally I would recommend that the book be updated, but I won't, since I'm pretty sure I wouldn't reread it regardless.

[amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Personal information management as ticket to the good life, also feat. inspirational one-liners from Thoreau, MLK ... hard pass. (HOLD ON there is a Judy Garland quotation. Wavering.) Seems like a good clue to the attitudes in which this area of research generally grounds itself.

[Cheyenne · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who lives in fear of losing everything on my computer, this book and its eye opening discussions on personal information management (PIM) left me empowered to take more control over my own personal information for ease of future retrieval and storage, but also to control who else will have access to it.

The book gave me a new perspective on PIM and on the information that (constantly) flows into and out of my life. My information – email, digital docs, photos, music, bookmarks, whatever – has a life of its own and a life cycle. Information comes in. Sometimes it’s useful. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes (too often!) it just gets in the way. But I never really thought of my information as something to be actively managed. And not just to avoid bad things like identity theft or data loss. But also for good things like working smarter and in ways that better leverage my time. Many people already have a PIM system or tool that works for them and their specific needs, but one of the real assets of this book is in helping you deconstruct the constant flow of information even before you start making determinations of what info to keep, what to chuck, who can have access to it, and where it should permanently reside. Jones describes some really useful tools and practices to help become savvier about what information comes at you and what information you send back out and all with a focus on helping you manage your time, energy, and personal information better and smarter.

I especially liked the books metaphors. I certainly feel as if sometimes I’m in a “sea” of personal information. How much of this I can control remains to be seen. I also liked the idea that PIM is about “weaving together” my personal information or building a structure in which the various kinds of information can be integrated into a coherent whole. I went into reading this book with many questions about my own PIM tactics and techniques and the book certainly did a great job of answering them through anecdotes, scenarios, current processes, and the “what next” sections that take the extra step to show what is up and coming in the future to address my problems and concerns.

This book is written to speak to me, as well as a much more seasoned manager of information. You get the full spectrum of PIM, from the history and theoretical background to the current gadgets and fun, new tools that are changing the face of PIM. I would have never imagined that one day I might be wearing jewelry that was really a complete telecommunications system or that all my daily transactions, communications, scheduling, and information keeping could be done on a single, handheld computer or PDA. It is that full spectrum, from past to present to future, that makes this book both jam-packed full of pertinent and useful information while also being fun and exciting to read.

[William Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think "Keeping Found Things Found" is a book we need and can use. But then I'm the author.

Here's what Prof. Clayton Lewis at the University of Colorado wrote:

"This is an important book. Its theme is powerful and timely. The treatment combines keen observation, practical insight, and broad vision in way seldom seen."

I think “Keeping Found Things Found”, is for all of us who find ourselves struggling to keep on top of (rather than buried by!) our information. How can we manage more effectively? How can we build a world of information that helps us to realize our goals and dreams in the physical world? The book gives some answers. But, more important, the book gives some very useful questions to ask. Every day we run across some new Web initiative or gadget or software tool. Which are worth our time and trouble (and money)? The book gives a checklist of questions to consider. Questions move beyond the usual tool-centered feature list to larger questions concerning how the tool will work for us in our information environment and over time.

Here's the TOC:

I. Foundations
1. A study and a practice
2. A personal space of information
3. A framework for personal information management

II: Activities
4. Finding and re-finding: From need to information
5. Keeping and organizing: From information to need
6. Maintaining information for now and for later
7. Managing privacy and the flow of information
8. Measuring and evaluating
9. Making sense of things


III: Solutions
10. Email disappears?
11. Search gets personal
12. PIM on the go
13. PIM on the Web

V: Conclusions
14. Bringing the pieces together
15. Finding our way in(to) the future

[Em · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is not what I expected. I thought I would learn how to better manage my own information, but instead it was a general overview of the theories of finding, keeping, organising and maintaining information, followed by some hypothetical scenarios that weren't applicable or realistic.

It might be useful as a reference book for the study of personal information management, but it's not helpful if you're looking for a guide to how to keep your own found things found.

[Hunter Johnson]

Keeping Found Things Found by William Jones. Another interesting book, but hit-and-miss. Too much reliance on dictionary definitions and Wikipedia cites make it read like an undergraduate's essay. Colorful sidebars clash with scholarly citations. White text on low-contrast background make some "sidebars" hard to read, period. But useful nuggets throughout.

[Ralph]

From the Babson book list

[Lori Gawdyda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm hopeful that one day all of my computer files will be organized. My latest cool tools are Evernote, Mendeley and Planz.

[ACRL]

Read by ACRL Member of the Week Bohyun Kim. Learn more about Bohyun on the ACRL Insider blog.