Museums and the Web 2014 Deep Dive Workshop: Email Preservation. Lightning talk examining issues that the cultural heritage sector faces in preserving and providing access to history via email correspondence. #MW2014 #deepdive

1. Email Archiving:
Issues and Concerns
Deep Dive: Assessing Tools and Best Practices for
Email Preservation and Access in Art Museums

2. A few things about
official email correspondence
that keep me up at night …

3. Correspondence as primary source material
• Organizational history
• Object acquisition
• Artworks … what is today’s equivalent to Van Gogh’s
letters?
• Incomplete threads
• Inconsistent (or non-existent) archiving practices
- Multiple formats
- Print & paper file: inconsistent practice, no guidelines, can’t monitor
- Idiosyncratic approaches

4. Questions of intellectual property
• Who owns the content?
• Reliance on cloud-based systems
- Terms of service vary widely

5. Scary Technology Stuff
• Years of inbox size limits
- IT had real resource limits – treated as a cost center
- IT ordered deletion, offered no alternative
• Migration from system-to-system
- Migration can be “lossy”

6. Archiving versus Backup
• Um … they aren’t the same thing …
• Confuses senior decision-makers
• Even if archiving is taking place:
- Lack of policies
- Unfiltered content (loads of garbage)
- Versioning issues
- Failures & inadvertent deletes

7. Inbox used as de facto DAM system
• File attachments galore
• Storage, search, retrieval challenges
• Content disappears when staff depart

8. Legal Stuff
• Provenance
• Subpoena/Discovery
• Other (mainly HR) issues: bias, discrimination,
harassment, etc.

9. Media-based artwork: documentation
• Artist’s instructions & preferences
• Troubleshooting & problem-solving
• Stated and/or implied permissions
- File conversion
- Equipment upgrade or replacement

10. Complexity & expense
• Do we have the resources?
• Staffing?
• Standards?

11. History
Help!
Objects
Threads
Inconsistency
Print
Incomplete
Formats
Storage
Provenance
Subpoena
Ownership
HR issues
Cloud
Confusion
Back up
Attachments
Paper
Unfiltered
DAMs
Permissions
Artists
UpgradeResources
Staffing
Standards

12. Thank you!
Douglas Hegley, Director of Technology
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
dhegley@artsmia.org
@dhegley