A Method for Acquisition and Preservation of Emails

A Method for Acquisition and Preservation of Emails. Claus Jensen, Christen Hedegaard. iPres 2016. (Proceedings p. 72-6/ PDF p. 37-39).
     The paper describes new methods for the acquisition of emails from a broad range of sources not directly connected with the responsible organization, as well ingesting into the repository. Some of the requirements:

Non-technical requirements

• Maximum emulation of traditional paper-based archiving criteria, procedures
• High level of security against loss, degradation, falsification, and unauthorized access
• A library record should exist, even if documents are not publicly available 
• Simple procedure for giving access to third-party by donor
• Maximum degree of auto-archiving
• Minimum degree of curator involvement after Agreement

Technical-oriented requirements

• No new software programs for the donor to learn
• No need for installation of software on the donor’s machine
• As much control over the complete system  as possible
• Automated workflows as much as possible
• Independence from security restrictions on the donor system imposed by others 

New requirements for the second prototype

• The system should be based on standard email components
• Easy to use for both curator and donors
• Donors’ self-deposit
• System based on voluntary/transparent deposit 
• It should be independent of technical platforms  
• Donor ability to transfer emails to the deposit area at any time
• Donor should always have access to donated emails
• Varying levels of access for external use 
• Donors must be able to organize and reorganize emails.
• Donors must be allowed to saved delete emails within a certain time-frame
• The original email header metadata must be preserved
• The donors must be able to deposit other digital content besides emails

The Royal Library created two areas for each donor, the deposit area and the donation area.  The repository supports linked data and uses RDF within its data model that creates relations between the objects. By ingesting the different email representations the system is able to perform file characterization on the email container files, individual emails, and attachments.

"The email project is still active, and there is still time to explore alternative or supplementing methods for the acquisition of emails. Also the task of finding good ways of disseminating the email collections has not yet begun."

Digital Preservation Matters.