Email Archiving: Issues and Concerns

Deep Dive: Assessing Tools and Best Practices for Email Preservation and Access in Art Museums

A few things about official email correspondence

that keep me up at night …

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

Questions of intellectual property

• Who owns the content?

• Reliance on cloud-based systems- Terms of service vary widely

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”

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

Inbox used as de facto DAM system

• File attachments galore

• Storage, search, retrieval challenges

• Content disappears when staff depart

Legal Stuff

• Provenance

• Subpoena/Discovery

• Other (mainly HR) issues: bias, discrimination, harassment, etc.

Media-based artwork: documentation

• Artist’s instructions & preferences

• Troubleshooting & problem-solving

• Stated and/or implied permissions- File conversion- Equipment upgrade or replacement

Complexity & expense

• Do we have the resources?

• Staffing?

• Standards?

History

Help!

Objects

Threads

Inconsistency

Print

Incomplete

Formats

Storage

Provenance

Subpoena

Ownership

HR issues

Cloud

Confusion

Back up

Attachments

PaperUnfiltered

DAMs

Permissions

Artists

UpgradeResources

Staffing

Standards

Thank you!

Douglas Hegley, Director of TechnologyMinneapolis Institute of Arts

dhegley@artsmia.org

@dhegley