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

2. 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

3. M Project ( )
Supported by grant from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Context:
Large amounts of generated daily at the university in numerous systems
No efficient method to select, appraise, and transfer administrative 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
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 export

4. Lessons Learned from MeMail
Storage: security, redundancy, and accessibility are not cheap!
Collaboration with IT is essential
Information & Technology Services ( 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 (value may lie in threads/larger context)
Third-party confidentiality/privacy concerns

5. 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 to Deep Blue repository
BHL supplies descriptive and administrative metadata
Separates attachments and creates unique identifiers
Packages 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