Email preservation

These are requirements for email preservation in Archivematica:

Preservation format
- Proprietary closed formats such as PST should be converted to open preservation format
- Preservation format should be text or xml based
- Email messages, calendars, contacts and other related entities should be normalized to the preservation format
- Preservation format should preserve the significant characteristics of the email messages
- Preservation format should be capable of being viewed as an access format or should be capable of generating an access format
Attachments
- Attachments should be converted to preservation and access formats
- Converted attachments should retain links to emails to which they were attached
Access format
- Access format should be human-readable and should be recognizable as email
- Access format should allow simple, intuitive navigation between messages, attachments, email boxes, contacts, calendars
- Access format should allow navigation to normalized access copies of attachments

Email preservation research

Preserving Email] (DPC Technology Watch Report 11-01, ISSN 2048-7916, Digital Preservation Coalition 2011), Chris Prom, University of Illinois.

"In general, if an institution can get email into one of the MBOX or EML formats, it has taken a very big step on the road toward preserving email." (p.23)
"XML conversion tools...can be very useful in achieving format neutrality. However, the author is aware of no general-purpose tools that are intended to facilitate the access, display, searching, or visualization of messages that have been migrated to XML. Until such tools have been developed – if they ever are – institutions will be forced to provide access to migrated messages using an email client of their choice or the user’s choice, recognizing that specific tools support different functionality." (p. 23)