Open Forum

At a recent meeting, our curators posed a question about the process people are using to "archive" important emails that relate to museum business. This was prompted by the hiring of a new curator & collections manager in one department who were trying to figure out the history of a NAGPRA claim and the communication history of the previous employees. This history was, theoretically, locked up in their university email accounts and the new curator wanted to avoid submitting a legal request to the university to gain access to those email accounts (which probably would have been within his rights, but he wasn't ready to take that aggressive of a move having just started his job).

As a collections manager, I of course suggested printing important emails and filing appropriately. They didn't like this suggestion and were hoping for a more "modern" or paper-free archiving system that wouldn't lock away messages in an email system.

Has anyone created a protocol for handling this archiving problem? Our university uses Google for the email system and unfortunately, you don't have the option of "Save as" in that inbox like in some other email systems. We got as far as "Print" and "Save as PDF" which you could then save to your computer or cloud filing system. Looking for some innovative solutions to this ubiquitous problem!

Thanks in advance,
Angela

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Angela Linn
Senior Collections Manager, Ethnology & History
University of Alaska Museum of the North
Fairbanks AK
ajlinn@alaska.edu
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Angela, Electronic records management and digital preservation are critical issues being addressed be the archival community. There are software options and protocols available. I suggest you contact the Alaska State Archives (Dean Dawson is the state archivist)' the websites of the Council of State Archivists (especially the electronic records section of our Resource Center) and the Society of American Archivists. I'm sure you'll receive a lot of responses to you query from knowledgeable people who are working with electronic records management systems. ------------------------------------------- Anne Ackerson Council of State Archivists Albany NY -------------------------------------------
Original Message: Sent: 11-24-2014 01:31 PM From: Angela Linn Subject: Archiving emails for long-term access At a recent meeting, our curators posed a question about the process people are using to "archive" important emails that relate to museum business. This was prompted by the hiring of a new curator & collections manager in one department who were trying to figure out the history of a NAGPRA claim and the communication history of the previous employees. This history was, theoretically, locked up in their university email accounts and the new curator wanted to avoid submitting a legal request to the university to gain access to those email accounts (which probably would have been within his rights, but he wasn't ready to take that aggressive of a move having just started his job). As a collections manager, I of course suggested printing important emails and filing appropriately. They didn't like this suggestion and were hoping for a more "modern" or paper-free archiving system that wouldn't lock away messages in an email system. Has anyone created a protocol for handling this archiving problem? Our university uses Google for the email system and unfortunately, you don't have the option of "Save as" in that inbox like in some other email systems. We got as far as "Print" and "Save as PDF" which you could then save to your computer or cloud filing system. Looking for some innovative solutions to this ubiquitous problem! Thanks in advance, Angela ------------------------------------------- Angela Linn Senior Collections Manager, Ethnology & History University of Alaska Museum of the North Fairbanks AK ajlinn@alaska.edu -------------------------------------------

It is my understanding from a number of archivists that the best method of preserving electronic data is to print it.   Not only do all storage media eventually degrade (I believe the best "permanent" media lasts 35-40 years at most), there is a need to continually migrate the data to new platforms.    From my registrar's perspective, I would say that digital technology  provides us with great methods of communication and data manipulation, but it is not a storage solution.

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Janice Klein
Executive Director
Museum Association of Arizona
Tempe AZ
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-25-2014 06:51 AM
From: Anne Ackerson
Subject: Archiving emails for long-term access


Angela,

Electronic records management and digital preservation are critical issues being addressed be the archival community. There are software options and protocols available. I suggest you contact the Alaska State Archives (Dean Dawson is the state archivist)' the websites of the Council of State Archivists (especially the electronic records section of our Resource Center) and the Society of American Archivists. I'm sure you'll receive a lot of responses to you query from knowledgeable people who are working with electronic records management systems.
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Anne Ackerson
Council of State Archivists
Albany NY
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Hello Angela,

Your question intrigued me, so I did a little poking online.  (I use Gmail for my personal, not business, email but creating an email archive outside of Google is probably wise step for me anyway!)  I found a link to an article explaining the uses of Google Takeout that may help, but it would still require getting access to the old email account in question.  If this method for saving email is used proactively by your current staff and the resulting files are saved in shared location, you shouldn't need access to accounts after staff leave in the future.  The official Google Takeout page is here, and you can click in the different categories of data to learn more about how they are stored.

When you create an mbox file, there are various converters out there that will allow you to convert it into a PDF if you want, or you can open the file in gmail or another email client.

Here at the Met, we are still doing things the old-fashioned way-- printing the important emails where decisions are made and adding them to the permanent paper files for our Archives-- even as we explore ways to save electronic data.  I still think paper is a good back-up for the really important stuff until you have a robust plan in place for keeping up with your digital files, and until there is more consensus about file formats and storage solutions for the long term.  (I'm not an expert mind you, but this is what I've gleaned.)  

Good luck!

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Romy Vreeland
Manager, Board of Trustees and General Counsel's Office
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York NY
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