Email Preservation at the Bentley Historical Library A work in progress… Mid-Michigan Digital Practitioners Meeting Michigan State University August 2, 2013

Bentley Historical Library Established in 1935 by the University of Michigan Regents . Serves as the official archives of the University of Michigan. Document the history of the state and the activities of its people, organizations and voluntary associations. Four divisions: University Archives and Records Program (UARP) Michigan Historical Collections (MHC) Digital Curation Division Reference and Access Services http://bentley.umich.edu

MeMail Project (2009-2010) Supported by grant from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Context: Large amounts of email generated daily at the university in numerous email systems No efficient method to select, appraise, and transfer administrative email of long-term value to the archives Initial plan (ERMS) proved too costly to implement Revised plan: Involve record creators in the appraisal and selection of email Create archival mail accounts for 10 pilot participants; creators drag/drop, CC, BCC, or forward mail to account Shared access with archives permits direct transfer via email export

Lessons Learned from MeMail Storage: security, redundancy, and accessibility are not cheap! Collaboration with IT is essential Information & Technology Services (email accounts) Library Information Technology (scripting and repository management) Low rates of transfer to archival mailboxes; reasons cited by participants included: Difficulty identifying messages of archival value Other means used to communicate important business/decisions Nature of email (value may lie in threads/larger context) Third-party confidentiality/privacy concerns

The Legacy of MeMail Support/funding for new Digital Curation Division Preservation Plan: If necessary, convert to RFC 2822 compliant MBOX format (and retain original .PST, .MSG, etc.) and create separate copy of attachments Virus and PII scans; technical metadata extraction (DROID); checksum calculation Automated deposit of email to Deep Blue repository BHL supplies descriptive and administrative metadata Separates attachments and creates unique identifiers Packages email and attachments in .ZIP file Generates METS file with PREMIS Next: what do we do with Google? Gmail options: Vault—keep everything Shared departmental account—can forward/CC Active management: Delete Filter Label