This seminar is aimed at casting light upon the contemporary debate on personal archives. In the last years, the dynamics of preservation, managing and composition of the personal archives themselves was directly struck by the digital factor. From the quest of document preservation through digital means to the composition of personal archives with digitally conceived documents, we can observe enormous change in the safeguarding, reception, managing and preservation processes of personal documentation. The will to maintain and the biographical dimension of archives gathered by individuals, inherent characteristics to personal archives, were met by the arrival of new procedures adopted by institutions dedicated to preservation. In the same way, such institutions were impacted by an increasingly growing reception of digitally conceived documents gathered by archive holders. In this scenario, we launched the International Seminar of Personal Archives to comprehend and renovate the debate on personal archives in the 21^st century, searching to unite experiences and various initiatives adopted by preservation institutions and archive holders worldwide.