Keeping Found Things Found
The Study and Practice of Personal Information Management
By, William Jones
Table of Contents
Preface / xi
Contributors / xvi
FOUNDATIONS
1.1 / Keeping found things found / 4
1.2 / An ideal and the reality / 7
1.3 / A brief history of PIM / 10
1.4 / Who benefits from better PIM and how? / 13
1.5 / A study and a practice / 14
1.6 / Looking forward: A map for this book / 15
2.1 / Starting out / 25
2.2 / What is information to us? / 28
2.3 / How is information personal? / 33
2.4 / The information item and its form / 36
2.5 / Defining a personal space of information / 40
2.6 / Making sense of the PSI / 45
2.7 / Looking back, looking forward / 50
3.1 / Starting out / 56
3.2 / Perspectives on personal information management / 59
3.3 / PIM activities to map between information and need / 60
3.4 / PIM-related activities and PIM-related areas / 67
3.5 / Weaving PIM activities together / 72
3.6 / Looking back, looking forward / 75
ACTIVITIES
4.1 / Starting out / 80
4.2 / Getting oriented / 82
4.3 / Everyday finding: Death by a thousand look-ups / 89
4.4 / Finding is multistep / 93
4.5 / The limitations in ideal dialogs of finding / 105
4.6 / Wayfinding through the PSI / 107
4.7 / Looking back, looking forward / 114
5.1 / Starting out / 122
5.2 / Getting oriented / 125
5.3 / Everyday keeping and organizing: To each his own / 126
5.4 / Keeping is multifaceted / 129
5.5 / The limitations of future perfect visions / 134
5.6 / PICing our battles / 138
5.7 / Looking back, looking forward / 150
6.1 / Starting out / 154
6.2 / Getting oriented / 156
6.3 / Maintaining for now / 160
6.4 / Maintaining for later / 166
6.5 / Maintaining for our lives and beyond / 171
6.6 / Looking back, looking forward / 176
7.1 / Starting out / 180
7.2 / Getting oriented / 182
7.3 / Managing the outflow / 186
7.4 / Managing the inflow / 195
7.5 / Staying in the flow / 202
7.6 / Looking back, looking forward / 207
8.1 / Starting out / 212
8.2 / Getting oriented / 214
8.3 / A yardstick for measuring PIM practice elements / 216
8.4 / What can research tell us about methods of measuring and evaluating in our practices PIM? / 222
8.5 / Measuring and evaluating in real life / 230
8.6 / Can self-study of PIM practices contribute to the larger study of PIM? / 236
8.7 / Looking back, looking forward / 239
9.1 / Starting out / 244
9.2 / Getting oriented / 245
9.3 / Making sense as outcome vs. activity / 251
9.4 / Making sense of things as a PIM activity / 257
9.5 / Methods for making sense / 263
9.6 / Looking back, looking forward / 267
SOLUTIONS
10.1 / Starting out: Is e-mail a very successful failure? / 272
10.2 / PIM problems in e-mail: The one-two punch / 274
10.3 / PIM activities in e-mail / 279
10.4 / Future visions of e-mail / 284
10.5 / Looking back, looking forward / 296
11.1 / Starting out / 300
11.2 / Search-as-interaction / 303
11.3 / Search-as-technology / 307
11.4 / Making search more personal / 310
11.5 / Wayfinding and search / 313
11.6 / Looking back, looking forward / 317
12.1 / Starting out / 320
12.2 / Getting oriented / 323
12.3 / A foreseeable future / 325
12.4 / What to expect from PIM-on-the-go? / 336
12.5 / Looking back, looking forward / 344
13.1 / Starting out / 348
13.2 / Getting oriented / 349
13.3 / A foreseeable future? / 351
13.4 / What to expect for PIM-on-the-Web? / 354
13.5 / Looking back, looking forward / 366
CONCLUSIONS
14.1 / Starting out / 370
14.2 / Getting oriented / 372
14.3 / Stories of synergy / 374
14.4 / Kinds of integration / 379
14.5 / Enabling unifications / 380
14.6 / Looking back, looking forward / 385
15.1 / Starting out / 388
15.2 / To the future / 389
15.3 / In the future / 394
15.4 / On our way / 399
References / 403
Index / 423