A study of remembered context for information access from personal digital archives

Retrieval from personal archives (or Human Digital Memories (HDMs)) is set to become a significant challenge in information retrieval (IR) research. These archives are unique in that the items in them are personal to the owner and as such the owner may have personal memories associated with the items. It is recognized that the harnessing of an individual’s memories about HDM items can be used as context data (such as user location at the time of item access) to aid retrieval. We present a pilot study, using one subject’s HDM, of remembered context data and its utility in retrieval. Our results explore the types of context data best remembered for different item types and categories over time and show that context appears to become a more important factor in effective HDM IR over time as the subject’s recall of contents declines