Email Management is not a Natural Act

Megan Winget - Co-Project Manager

Managing the Digital University Desktop: Introduction and Preliminary

Findings

Email As Record

• Email = considered “insignificant” mode of communication

• Appropriate user decisions

The “insignificant” nature of either their email or their job…

• “I don't think that I produce the kinds of documents that are legally of interest, it's not like I am discovering DNA or anything, [it’s] not of potential relevance to a broad enough spectrum of people to be worth it” [Sociology Faculty member]

• “[Email is] the equivalent of the pink "while you were out" notes”

• “No, [archivists] have better things to do with their time”• “There are a lot more interesting things happening at the

university”• “I don't think of [emails] as permanent documents”• “It's not as though I transfer deep thoughts via email.”

Important Emails Printed / Stored Somewhere Else

• “Things that are truly important typically have a hard copy somewhere that gets routed through records retention.”

• “I’d like to believe that everything that we have this is important we have in paper files.”

• “Whatever I think of as permanent I would print out, I’ve never considered email to be archival.”

Technical / Monetary / Archival Challenges

• “It doesn’t seem like it’s worth spending resources to save that sort of stuff forever.”

• “My instincts say no…and that’s simply out of a belief about the relationship of that information to me. It’s all about context and what’s relevant at the moment.”

• “You could kind of say that anyone would want to save anything, but someone would have to write out a history of it.”

• “I just see that as an insurmountable amount of data.”

Email Should Be Saved…

•Historical Purposes: “That would be an interesting thing to look at 1000 years from now;”

•Legal Purposes: medical, student, administrative records

•Institutional Memory: “After I leave, someone will have to know how I did things.”

Document Types

22%

23%

17%

9%

9%

6%

4%

6%

2%

2%

Financial materials

Administrative Records

Student records

Correspondence

Grant materials

Legal materials

Patient records

Research papers

Email

presentations

based on 59 responses

Do You Follow a Retention Schedule?

Yes30%

No 63%

I don't know3%

Other4%

based on 70 responses

Storage, Organization & Management

1. Reliable Storage and Retrieval Mechanisms

2. Comprehensible Organization Schemas

3. Metadata to Provide Context

Reliable Storage (digital preservation)

•“the practice of storing email messages with long-term value on machine readable media such as CD-ROM, 3480 tape, or digital linear tape presumes that the hardware and software required to read the data will exist into the future.”

•Reserves the right to “accept into the State Archives email stored only on those media it has the ability to read” and that it might “delegate the responsibility of long term maintenance and preservation to the creating agency.”

Comprehensible Organization Schemas

• The email messages must be organized in a system, so that one may determine the general topic to which the messages relate.

How Many Emails in Your Inbox?

1 to 5040%

51 to 10012%

101 to 50022%

501 to 1,0005%

over 1,00019%

I don't know2%

based on 97 responses

Number of Folders

32%

54%

14%

Medium (11-50)

High (over 51)

Low (under 10)

No Folders People

• 25% have over 3000 messages in their inbox, • 25% have between 200 and 1000 messages• 50% have fewer than 20

• Tend to be most satisfied, • None of them reported problems finding an

older email• Not compliant with state guidelines.

Context / Metadata

For those messages that have “permanent, archival value…”

• Messages transferred to the Division must have metadata concerning the email and its related electronic records recorded on the Division’s electronic records inventory form.

AttachmentsMethods for Preserving Relationship

78%

13%

6% 3%

Store both in email

cut and paste info

print both together

use naming conventions

32 responses. Respondents could give more than one answer.

User Knowledge

• “Users of email must understand the ways in which email has changed workflow and business practices in recent years.”

• These users, “as well as information technology (IT) professionals who will be asked to preserve [email] over time, must receive training regarding issues outlined in these guidelines.”