Abstract This paper explores the use of Fisher and Tronto's four phases of ethics of care (caring about, taking care of, caregiving, and care receiving) to three personal information management (PIM) frameworks, with a focus on PIM maintaining. The author argues that ethics of care can provide a theoretical foundation for PIM by using the four phases of caring to develop a perspective of PIM as a caring process using the categories of PIM as self‐care and PIM as caring for others. The paper begins by reviewing Fisher and Tronto's ethics of care, cites research in related fields that have applied ethics of care, and then describes how ethics of care could be applied to PIM research. To conclude, the author offers suggestions for how ethics of care can be applied to future PIM research in the following areas: better understand the motivations for PIM; the ways in which PIM can contribute to the social concepts of equality, justice, and trust and how social institutions can facilitate “good” PIM.

Abstract This research reports on qualitative interviews with 31 participants who are Irish parents, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer (LGBQ), and who expressed difficulty in the process of obtaining birth certificates for their children. Our aim was to use personal information management (PIM) and personal digital archiving (PDA) as a lens to explore the invisible work that the Irish government requires of a sexual minority parent group to obtain “equal” treatment in the birth registration and birth certificate process. Our findings suggest overlap with existing information behavior research (IB) that explore invisible information work, IB as a burden, information marginalization, information vulnerability, and information overload, and the everyday in IB. We propose a new framework: personal information burden (PIM‐B) which is characterized by additional PIM activities, negative affect, lack of identity self extension to the personal information, and additional information seeking. We propose that a PIM‐B may be used as an indicator of inequality in future research.

Digital possessions are digital items that individuals distinguish from other digital items by specific qualities that individuals perceive the digital items to possess. Twenty‐three participants were interviewed about their definitions of and relationships with digital possessions to identify the most salient characteristics of digital possessions and to inform preservation. Findings indicate that digital possessions are characterized as (a) providing evidence of the individual, (b) representing the individual's identity, (c) being recognized as having value, and (d) exhibiting a sense of bounded control. Furthermore, archival concepts of primary, secondary, and intrinsic values provide the frame for the defining characteristics. Although several findings from this study are consistent with former studies of material possessions and digital possessions, this study expands research in the area using the concept of digital possessions to inform preservation and by applying archival principles of value. Understanding the nature of the individual and digital item relationship provides potential to explore new areas of reference and outreach services in libraries and archives. As the nature of archival and library reference services evolves, some scholars have predicted that archives and libraries will play a part in helping individuals manage their personal collections An exploration of individuals' relationships with their digital possessions can serve as a starting point at which scholars can explore the potential of personal information management consulting as a new area of reference and information services, specifically for the preservation of personal digital material.

Many search systems provide users with recommended queries during online information seeking. Although usage statistics are often used to recommend queries, this information is usually not displayed to the user. In this study, we investigate how the presentation of this information impacts use of query suggestions. Twenty-three subjects used an experimental search system to find documents about four topics. Eight query suggestions were provided for each topic: four were high quality queries and four were low quality queries. Fake usage information indicating how many other people used the queries was also provided. For half the queries this information was high and for the other half this information was low. Results showed that subjects could distinguish between high and low quality queries and were not influenced by the usage information. Qualitative data revealed that subjects felt favorable about the suggestions, but the usage information was less important for the search task used in this study.