Why Should I Care About Email Archives?
The likelihood of finding a paper trail of correspondence continues to decline since electronic means have been the principal method to exchange messages since at the early 200os. Since then, communications are being filed away in hard drives, mobile devices, and cloud services, creating an electronic trail waiting to be preserved and, someday, used as historical source materials.
Just like paper-based archives, email archives can facilitate untold historical insights. These communications are just one ingredient in a story about the past. By the specific actions that archives and libraries take today, they can capture, preserve and provide access to the history that email holds.
What type of projects do you anticipate supporting?
Projects that will implement recommendations found in the Future of Email Archives Report such as:
- Improve Format Identification, Characterization, & Validation Tools
- Archival community needs more accurate and flexible tools to identify, characterize, and validate formats commonly used for email messages in order to increase confidence with archival workflows. Integrating these capabilities within existing tools or within closely aligned applications rather than create stand-alone instances for each function will promote interoperability.
Reference 6.2.1 Low Barrier/Short-Term Actions
- Archival community needs more accurate and flexible tools to identify, characterize, and validate formats commonly used for email messages in order to increase confidence with archival workflows. Integrating these capabilities within existing tools or within closely aligned applications rather than create stand-alone instances for each function will promote interoperability.
- Test Existing Tools for Data Impact and Data Loss
- The impact of both open sources and propriety tools has not been documented or evaluated. Are technical metadata and header fields added, lost or altered? Does the ordering of the tool chain make a difference? The first phase of this work will focus on the format migration of email messages, followed by work for renderability.
Reference 6.2.1 Low Barrier/Short-Term Actions
- The impact of both open sources and propriety tools has not been documented or evaluated. Are technical metadata and header fields added, lost or altered? Does the ordering of the tool chain make a difference? The first phase of this work will focus on the format migration of email messages, followed by work for renderability.
- Improve Format Identification, Characterization, & Validation Tools
- Archival community needs more accurate and flexible tools to identify, characterize, and validate formats commonly used for email messages in order to increase confidence with archival workflows. Integrating these capabilities within existing tools or within closely aligned applications rather than create stand-alone instances for each function will promote interoperability.
Reference 6.2.1 Low Barrier/Short-Term Actions
- Archival community needs more accurate and flexible tools to identify, characterize, and validate formats commonly used for email messages in order to increase confidence with archival workflows. Integrating these capabilities within existing tools or within closely aligned applications rather than create stand-alone instances for each function will promote interoperability.
How much support may be requested?
A maximum support of $100,000 can be requested.
When is the submission deadline?
Submission for Round One is June 30th.
Do you pay ICR or overhead?
Neither ICR or overhead will be provided for this project.
Will the project provide pre-submission feedback?
Pre-submission feedback will be provided and more information will be provided soon.
How do I submit a proposal?
Submission instructions are provided on the Submit a Proposal tab. The Submission Form will be provided soon.
What budget items are allowable?
Budget items such as Salaries & Wages, Consultants, Conferences. For further information please review the Budget Template provided in the Submission Instructions portion.