Research Forum Presentation: Digital Dilemmas: Archiving E-Mail

Authors
Nancy Adgent, CERP Archivist, Rockefeller Archive Center

Lynda Schmitz Fuhrig, CERP Archivist, Smithsonian Institution Archives

Abstract
The Collaborative Electronic Records Project (CERP) of the Rockefeller Archive Center and the Smithsonian Institution Archives is a three-year project to develop a strategy and the means to preserve historically important information created in electronic formats by the two institutions’ depositors. E-mail records are the primary focus of the project because of their importance in documenting daily activities, complying with regulatory and legal matters, and providing information to future scholars, as well as their vulnerability to obliteration. A parallel goal is to share project products with the archival and non-profit communities.

Now in the final year of the project, we have captured, verified, and tested sample e-mail caches and have developed guidance documents and processing forms to facilitate archiving e-mail in digital form. A model technical infrastructure system is being developed, and we are selecting metadata elements and schema for deposit into and access from a long-term storage repository. Nancy Adgent will address the challenges of accessioning e-mail, the processing forms and best practices documents developed for archivists’ use, and the guidance documents prepared for depositor education. Lynda Schmitz Fuhrig will provide a demonstration of the parser the group is using for xml output of the email collections. Discussion also will include the elements of an Archival Information Packet (AIP) for deposit into the long-term repository DSpace.

Additional Resources
The Collaborative Electronic Records Project(Rockefeller)

The Collaborative Electronic Records Project(Smithsonian)