"THERE ARE POOLS OF INFORMATION THAT NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO ARRANGE": PERSONAL INFORMATION MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES AND HIGH-LEVEL STRATEGIES OF KNOWLEDGE WORKERS

This paper explores personal information management challenges and high-level strategies of knowledge workers. Seven in-depth interviews were held with knowledge workers who work in the fields of industry and education. Findings show that knowledge workers cope with the need to manage overloaded information spaces that are fragmented into multiple digital platforms. In order to face those challenges, knowledge workers develop innovative, high-level strategies for keeping, managing, and retrieving information items. High-level strategies help them to merge the fragmented information spaces, reduce the sense of information overload, and facilitate the process of managing personal information. We suggest that high-level strategies, alongside PIM practices, are part of PIM literacy. This literacy appears to be a challenge for the education system, because students have to acquire PIM practices and high-level strategies in order to be able to function in a world of ubiquitous information.