Personal information organization in everyday life: modeling the process
| Date | 13 May 2019 |
| Pages | 667-691 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-05-2018-0080 |
| Published date | 13 May 2019 |
| Author | Kyong Eun Oh |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Personal information organization
in everyday life: modeling
the process
Kyong Eun Oh
School of Library and Information Science,
Simmons University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate and model the process of organizing personal
information in digital form in the context of everyday life.
Design/methodology/approach –A background survey, a diary study and two interviews were
conducted with each of the 18 participants, who are information users in social science academic
environments. In particular, the personal information organization process (PIOP) model was developed by
tracking and analyzing 143 organization events.
Findings –The PIOP model consists of six stages: initiation, identification, temporary categorization,
examination/comparison, selection/modification/creation and categorization. This model also shows actions,
thoughts and decisions involved in the organization process, and 19 factors that impact the process.
Originality/value –This study introduces a new model that specifically shows the process of organizing
personal information. This study advances our understanding of the process and informs the design and
development of systems and applications that support personal information management.
Keywords Personal information management, Categorization, Information behaviour,
Information organizing behaviour, Information organization, Information model, Process
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Personal information is the information a person keeps for his/her own use to complete
work-related or non-work-related tasks and to perform different responsibilities
( Jones, 2007). In other words, it is information that is under the person’s control.
Examples include books, files, photos and e-mails that a person creates, sends, receives, uses
or keeps. In this information-heavy society, we manage a vast quantity of personal
information in everyday life and organize it in various ways (Whittaker, 2011). There are
many advantages of effective personal information organization, including facilitating
finding information ( Jones et al., 2005), providing reminders and help for managing
tasks (Barreau and Nardi, 1995; Jones and Te evan, 2007), supporting a further
understanding of information, and increasing productivity (Erickson, 2006; Hwang et al.,
2015). Thus, effective organization of personal information helps people make the
better use of their resources, which include time, money and energy (Jones, 2007;
Warraich et al., 2018).
However, researchhas found that people stillspend a lot of time and effort organizingtheir
information, while often finding it difficult and unsuccessful (Bergman and Whittaker, 2016;
Fourie, 2011).Despite being importantto and having a close relationshipwith our lives, little is
known about the whole process an individual goes through when organizing their own
information. Therefore, this study explores the process of organizing personal information
and develops a model that holistically explains the process. More specifically, this study
identifies stages of the process as well as actions, thoughts, decisions and factors that are
involved in the process in the context of everyday life. Although information organization Journal of Documentation
Vol. 75 No. 3, 2019
pp. 667-691
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-05-2018-0080
Received 22 May 2018
Revised 23 December 2018
Accepted 27 December 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The author gratefully acknowledges Dr Nicholas J. Belkin for his insightful guidance and valuable
comments throughout this research project.
667
Personal
information
organization
includes establishing not only categories, but also various relationships among them, this
study mainly investigates the establishment and assignment of categories, and to some
extent, the establishment of hierarchical relationships among them.
Literature review
Categorization
Theories and studies of categorization help explain the characteristics of a category, which
provide good foundational knowledge for investigating the personal information organization
process (PIOP) that involves categorization. Among various studies and theories, Wittgenstein’s
(1953) family resemblance theory, Rosch’s (1978) prototype theory and Medin and Schaffer’s
(1978) context theory particularly offer good base knowledge. The main idea of Wittgenstein’s
family resemblance theory is that categories are created based on characteristics objects have in
common, such as the hair or eye color of family members. In other words, there is no absolute
property that determines membership to a category, and objects can be categorized in various
waysbasedonthecharacteristics they share. Wittgenstein’s family resemblance theory helps
explain why objects can be categorized in different ways and why an object can be categorized
into multiple categories simultaneously. Rosch further developed the family resemblance theory
and constructed a prototype theory, which provides explanations for why some objects are
easier or more difficult to categorize than others. The main idea of the prototype theory is that
there is an exemplar in a category, i.e., a prototype, which is the most typical member of the
category (Rosch, 1978, p. 32). The prototype theory furthers our understanding of the structure
of a category by showing that a category has a graded structure so that there are some
members of the category that are regarded as better examples than others, and there are no
clear boundaries to a category since objects that are less like the prototype may or may not be
categorized into the category (Rosch, 1978). In the case of the context theory of classification,
Medin and Schaffer (1978, pp. 209-210) asserted that “classification judgements are based on the
retrieval of stored exemplar information.”When applied to personal information organization,
this theory indicates that people make organizational decisions on the basis of the typical
information items that reside in existing categories.
In addition to these theories, cognitive sociology provides insights to understanding
cognitiveaspects of categorization,since it emphasizes thatcategorization is a mentalprocess.
Zerubavel (1996) asserted that in theprocess of categorization, people assess and adjust their
mental gaps between categories by ignoring or exaggerating similarities anddifferences. For
instance, people group similar items together by amplifying their similarities while
disregarding differences, and separate items from one another by exaggerating their
differences while overlooking similarities. Douglas’(1978, p. 2) work on purity and danger
helps explain why people may initiate the organization process by stating that “dirt”is a
disorder,which is out of the existingsystem, and organizationis an effort to eliminatethis dirt.
These studies are helpful for understanding the characteristics of categories, but most of
them either examined categorization conceptually or investigated categorization of non-
information items. In information science, some information behavior studies have focused
on the organization of information and applied ideas and theories from categorization and
cognitive sociology (Cooper, 2004; Rorissa and Iyer, 2008). However, they mainly
investigated the organization of non-personal information, especially in library settings,
which means that their findings have no obvious import for this study.
Personal information organization
Studies in personal information management (PIM) literature deepen our understanding of
various aspects of personal information organization. It is important to note that personal
information organization does not really make sense without taking the owner of the
information into account, which is different from theorganization of non-personal information.
668
JD
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