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Differences in personal information management (PIM) behavior are well established in the literature, but are defined from the narrow perspective of practical use (e.g. filing/piling, emailing). This paper aims to identify the types of PIM behavior that would help us understand how people manage personal information in the digital era.

The authors relied on the theoretical framework, published in a recent article (Alon and Nachmias, 2020a), examining actual PIM behavior (e.g. actual practice), ideal behavior (e.g. perceptions of best practice) and the gaps between them. Our framework drew on data collected via a questionnaire on the use of 25 PIM practices (N = 465).

The findings indicated four types of PIM behavior that differed by activity level (actual PIM) and satisfaction level (ideal PIM and gaps): passive and satisfied, active and satisfied, fairly active and unsatisfied and active and fairly satisfied. This allows the classification of users according to their dominant tendency to use specific practices.

Previous studies focused mainly on specific PIM practices or contexts. Our research creates a classification of types, based on ideal as well as actual PIM behavior, and also examines a broader perspective.

The study investigates the information-related challenges as well as the practices adopted by early-career researchers during transitions between roles and institutions. Its primary goal is to delve into how information behaviors serve as scaffolding during significant life shifts. Moreover, the research aims to provide actionable insights based on this scaffolding concept for individuals navigating transitions.

This preliminary and exploratory study took a phenomenological approach to examine the role of information seeking and personal information management (PIM) behaviors during life transitions. In-depth semi-structured interviews were held with 15 early-career researchers from various disciplines, who were about to finish their PhDs or had recently graduated.

By employing information seeking and PIM practices, participants were able to address three main information challenges that arose during the transition process: the timing of information behavior, the nature of information and the social components of the transition. The use of networked and independent information seeking/validation practices enabled to establish a sustainable network of transition-related information, reducing uncertainty. PIM practices helped planning the transition, maintaining information over the long-term and gaining control over personal information.

This study underscores the significance of information behaviors, encompassing both information seeking and PIM, as scaffolding mechanisms during crucial life transitions. It offers essential insights that can guide the creation of impactful interventions and resources. Additionally, the research illuminates the pressing demand for more in-depth exploration in this domain.

The study examined the personal information management (PIM) challenges encountered by faculty in six universities in Ghana, their information refinding experiences and the perceived role of memory. The study tested the hypothesis that faculty PIM performance will significantly differ when the differences in the influence of personal factors (age, gender and rank) on their memory are considered.

The study was guided by a sample survey design. A questionnaire designed based on themes extracted from earlier interviews was used to collect quantitative data from 235 faculty members from six universities in Ghana. Data analysis was undertaken with a discrete multivariate Generalized Linear Model to investigate how memory intermediates in the relationship between age, gender and rank, and, refinding of stored information.

The paper identified two subfunctions of refinding (Refinding 1 and Refinding 2) associated with self-confidence in information re-finding, and, memory (Memory 1 and Memory 2), associated with the use of complimentary frames to locate previously found and stored information. There were no significant multivariate effects for gender as a stand-alone variable. Males who were aged less than 39 could refind stored information irrespective of the memory class. Older faculty aged 40–49 who possess Memory 1 and senior lecturers who possess Memory 2 performed well in refinding information. There was a statistically significant effect of age and memory; and rank and memory.

This study was limited to faculty in Ghana, whereas the study itself has implications for demographic differences in PIM.

Identifying how memory mediates the role of personal factors in faculty refinding of stored information will be necessary for the efforts to understand and design systems and technologies for enhancing faculty capacity to find/refind stored information.

Understanding how human memory can be augmented by technology is a great PIM strategy, but understanding how human memory and personal factors interplay to affect PIM is more important.

PIM of faculty has been extensively examined in the literature, and limitations of memory has always been identified as a constraint. Human memory has been augmented with technology, although the outcome has been very minimal. This study shows that in addition to technology augmentation, personal factors interplay with human memory to affect PIM. Discrete multivariate Generalized Linear Model applied in this study is an innovative way of addressing the challenges of assimilating statistical methodologies in psychosocial disciplines.

The aim of this study is to investigate the personal information management (PIM) practices of students and its implications for library services at the University of Ghana.

This was a survey research, and questionnaires were administered to 150 students across their various programs of study. Questionnaire design was based on the literature reviewed and research objectives.

Results showed that, format, skills, size of collection, memory, and habits accounted for diverse PIM practices among students. Among the major drawbacks were inadequate skills, information fragmentation, inappropriate habits, and imperfect memory. These aspects when improved, would enhance the effectiveness of students' PIM practices tremendously.

The study adopted the PIM framework developed by James and Teevan and focused on the core activities of PIM namely: keeping, organizing and re‐finding. In order to provide a fair rounded picture of the PIM situation of students, it is expected that subsequent studies would cover the remaining variables notably‐ information maintenance; selection and implementation of a scheme; managing privacy and the flow of information; matters of security; measurement and evaluation; and making sense of things.

The study concludes that, through comprehensive information literacy training programmes offered by libraries; student‐oriented PIM researches; the formation of PIM clubs spearheaded by librarians and supported by university administrators, benevolent organizations and individuals, the PIM practices of students can be made better. PIM efforts should aim at shaping, improving, integrating and supporting students' PIM habits, skills, personal information collections and memories respectively.

PIM practices of students is among the least explored topics in the field of library and information studies in Ghana. This research would not only create awareness about PIM practices, but would also draw attention to the efforts that can be made to improve PIM practices of students in Ghana.

This study investigates the influence of personality traits on the personal digital hoarding behaviors of college students. Emotional attachment is included as a mediating variable, thereby enhancing the relevant theoretical frameworks associated with such behaviors.

A total of 370 college students were investigated using the Big Five personality scale, the digital hoarding behaviors scale, and a self-compiled emotional attachment scale. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS26.0 software.

Personality traits exerted a significant influence on individual digital hoarding behaviors, among which neuroticism (r = 0.526**), extroversion (r = 0.232**), and agreeableness (r = 0.233**) demonstrated notable effects. However, no significant correlation was found to link conscientiousness and openness with personal digital hoarding behaviors. Emotional attachment (r = 0.665**) significantly impacted personal digital hoarding behaviors. Regression analysis further showed that personality traits also affect personal digital hoarding behaviors through the partial mediating effect of emotional attachment. Dependency security was identified as a partial mediator of the effects of agreeableness and neuroticism on personal digital hoarding behaviors. Possession attachment was observed to be another partial mediator of the relationship between neuroticism and personal digital hoarding behaviors. Furthermore, fear of missing out was observed to partially mediate the effects of agreeableness and neuroticism on personal digital hoarding behaviors.

The generalizability of the self-compiled emotional attachment scale requires further verification in future research, as the selection of participants was relatively simplistic.

Our study showed the distinctive personality traits of individuals and their relationship with personal digital hoarding behaviors, along with the mediating role of emotional attachment. Our findings provide valuable insights for future personal information management and digital hoarding de-cluttering.

This research explores the influence of personality traits on the personal digital hoarding behaviors of college students and examines the mediating role of emotional attachment.

This column aims to explore the potential of personal information management (PIM) and reference management. It seeks to focus on how librarians can stay alert on new developments regarding PIM and related issues such as plagiarism, reference techniques, information literacy and information behaviour. It also tries to stimulate interest in looking for hidden gems that can be of value in their careers as well as those of library users by considering the innovative and creative use of PIM, e.g. by also monitoring the potential of mind maps and concept maps.

The column is written against the background of research from information behaviour, PIM, information curation, alerts on software development and related issues, and also social bookmarking.

There are many ways in which librarians can stay abreast of what is happening with PIM, reference management and related issues. There are also many things to note such as improvement of the software, uses of PIM and reference management, teaching skills in PIM and reference management, ways of sharing information, linking to innovation and creativity, and linking to information literacy and information behaviour.

Although much has been published on developments in PIM and reference management, the author is not aware of other attempts to link alerting services on PIM and reference management to go beyond developments in software.

To take full advantage of the unprecedented availability of information on networks and digital systems, professionals need to be comfortable finding information relevant to the tasks at hand. This study was conducted at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research to investigate scientists’ personal information management (PIM) practices.

A qualitative research approach was used. Critical incidents were collected to probe information about PIM activities. The PIM-related critical incidents were gathered through extended conversations in the form of semi-structured interviews.

Extended conversations revealed that scientists were aware of the importance of information organization and management. They collected and received information from various sources regarding their tasks and saved part of the information for future use. Scientists organized saved information into named folders using the categories of projects, clients and planning. The files were updated by regular deletion and cleaning. Different strategies were used to retrieve the information. These included searching by keywords and file names, and browsing using the folder structure. Scientists have used various PIM tools. They reported that time pressure, information overload and anxiety due to information fragmentation were major challenges in PIM.

This study recommends a compilation of guidelines to assist scientists in the efficient management of personal information. As there are only a few studies currently available in the literature on scientists’ PIM, this study makes a valuable contribution to the relevant professional literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the personal information management (PIM) behaviours of social science faculty in Africa. The study examined the experiences and encounters of selected social scientists in Africa in organising and finding and re-finding of the information they previously created or stored. More specifically, the study sought to examine how faculty keep and refind information, the files and folders in which they store the information. Also, the study examined the nature and characteristics of faculty information spaces with particular respect to electronic documents including emails and paper documents.

Sample survey research design and a mixed methods approach consisting of qualitative and quantitative were used. Data was collected using a discursive technique, an interview schedule and a questionnaire. Data analysis was conducted using factorial analysis of mixed data design, guided by a combination of category and codes identification using NVivo and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 17. Principal component analysis (PCA) of factor analysis was executed to identify key components.

Eleven issues, namely, time, infrastructure, importance of the information, folder/file management, document characteristics and organisational context played significant roles in the PIM behaviours of the respondents. Others were importance of the information, document overload, memory, workload and computer literacy. PCA extracted four major components, namely, document overload, time, computer literacy and importance of the information.

An expansion in the number of faculty involved in this study would probably yield a more reliable outcome. Extending the study to cover Africa would also yield a more applicable result.

The key PIM issues identified in this study, namely, document overload, time, computer literacy and importance of the information should constitute the focus of continuous information literacy education aimed at improving PIM social scientists’ faculty in Africa.

Improved PIM of social science faculty will result to improved research productivity and good health.

PIM of social scientists has not been examined in the literature, and yet it is crucial for further understanding their learning and information behaviours, and improving their productivity. The design and administration of a questionnaire constructed based on codes extracted from qualitative and discursive sessions to the same respondents from whom the qualitative data was collected makes the findings very strong. A further deployment of factorial analysis of mixed data design to handle qualitative data makes the contribution of the study very significant.

Personal information management (PIM) is an activity in which an individual stores personal information items in order to retrieve them later on. As PIM research moves from an infant stage of exploratory studies to more rigorous quantitative ones, there is a need to identify and map variables that characterize and account for the variety of PIM behaviour. This is the aim of the current research.

In an exploratory study, 20 semi-structured 90-minute interviews were recorded and transcribed. Variables were found by comparing the behaviors of participants who represent the two extreme poles of each variable's axis (i.e. when two participants showed a high and low degree of document redundancy, the redundancy variable was identified). In a later analysis, the variables were grouped into categories.

The paper identifies 15 variables grouped in five categories: organization related variables (order, redundancy and name meaning), structure variables (collection size, folder depth, folder breadth and folder size), work process variables (attendance time and modality), memory related variables (memory reliance, dominant memory) and retrieval variables (retrieval type, retrieval success, retrieval time and ubiquity).

Future research could make use of these variables in order to: measure their distribution, find relations between them, test how they are affected by variables external to PIM (e.g. systems design) and find how they affect other dependent variables (e.g. productivity).

This is the first research that systematically explores PIM variables.

This paper aims to explore the potential of personal information management (PIM) and reference management. The contribution focuses on collaboration: the issues that need to be addressed in planning, the human component in collaborative information seeking, and issues for research by librarians.

The paper is written against the background of research from information behaviour, PIM, collaborative information seeking and collaborative work.

There is growing emphasis on collaboration in information seeking, learning and work. PIM and reference management practices and their supporting software can greatly support this. There are, however, many planning/conceptual issues as well as the human component to recon with.

Although much has been published on developments in PIM and reference management, there is limited coverage of collaboration and PIM and reference management.