Keeping and Preserving E-mail - InterPARES 3 Project General Study 05

The aim of this study is to investigate the technical aspects relevant to the e-mail creation, capture and maintenance (i.e., records management) and permanent preservation (i.e., archival) processes. This is important since e-mail messages are a very peculiar kind of electronic document, with a rather complex structure, and because of the need to take into account, to some extent, also the peculiar infrastructure through which they are delivered (i.e., the Internet). To achieve this goal we have considered both the functionalities of the commercial products for e-mail management, including the so-called “e-mail archiving” systems, and the requirements expressed in several important reference documents. Devising precise and systematic procedures for e-mail records management and/or permanent preservation is not a goal of this document, and indeed cannot be done in a sufficiently general case, since these procedures may heavily depend on the characteristics of the organization where the process is taking place. For this reason the definition of a more detailed e-mail records management and permanent preservation model should be carried out as a separate task, within the InterPARES 3 Project, and deserves a more thorough discussion, involving records management, archival and IT competences