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Re: archiving e-mail



A brief comment on Ms. Ogborns post.  Most ISPs and other POP server owners
do not keep their backup tapes beyond 3 years.  In fact, many rotate out the
current tapes within months.  Thus, the backups of e-mails routed over the
server today may or may not exist 2 - 3 years from now.  Hardly a
"permanent" record!  Another note - those tapes that do exist are not
indexed.  It would take a massive effort (time and expense) to recreate
e-mails from all existing tapes (provided they exist at all).

Virginia A. Jones, CRM, MIT/LIT
Records Systems Coordinator
Newport News Dept. of Public Utilities
Newport News, VA
Voice: 757/247-2413
vjones@ci.newport-news.va.us

> -----Original Message-----
> From: M [mailto:mhmcat@YAHOO.COM]
> Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 11:08 AM
> To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
> Subject: Fwd: archiving e-mail
>
>
> To the list:
>
> I got this from a friend, and wanted to
> share this info with all of you.  Perhaps
> I should also forward this to the good
> people at NARA??
>
> Margaret Monroe
>
> (writing from home)
>
> Office Technician (Typing)
> and UNofficial archivist for the all
> state-owned toll bridge records
> held in Caltrans District 4
>
> Division of Structure Maintenance &
> Investigations - Toll Bridges
> Room 10-400
> P. O. Box 23660
> Oakland, CA  94623-0660
>
> Message:
>
> --- Anne Ogborn <anniepoo@netmagic.net> wrote:
> > Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 23:24:55 -0800
> > From: Anne Ogborn <anniepoo@netmagic.net>
> > To: Margaret Monroe <mhmcat@yahoo.com>
> > Subject: email archives
> >
> > I know you're on the archive list. If it'd be
> > of interest to them would you
> > forward?
> >
> >    I'm Anne Ogborn. I'm a software engineer. I
> > was listening to NPR today
> > and some archivist was talking about creating a
> > collection of letters &
> > how we're going to lose that source of history
> > because of email.
> >    I've heard this notion a half dozen times,
> > and it's always struck me
> > as odd, because it would be so easy to ensure
> > that email was preserved.
> > But apparently it's "common knowledge" amongst
> > archivists that email
> > is ephemeral.
> >   It's not. Most email is delivered by a
> process
> > called POP3. (Post Office Protocol,
> > revision 3). I'm sending this mail to Margaret.
> > Actually, I'm sending this email to
> > the outgoing mail server at www.idiom.com,
> > which will, within a few seconds, route it
> > on to someplace else, which will route it to
> > someplace else, until it arrives at the
> > yahoo email server, where it will stay until
> > she reads it.
> >   I'm writing this at 11pm local time. So
> > Margaret probably won't read this until
> > tomorrow. When she does download it, it will be
> > removed from the yahoo server.
> > Presumably this is why it 'wont be preserved'.
> >   But it WILL be preserved!  Sometime between
> > now and tomorrow morning an automated
> > process at yahoo, as at every well run server,
> > will copy all the information off the
> > server that has changed since this was last
> > done (which includes all the email). Virtually
> > every server on the Internet maintains these
> > 'backups'.
> > Usually the backup is done onto some sort of
> > tape system. There's often some sort of
> > rotation
> > scheme. Here's a typical rotation scheme:
> >  keep every tape back to 1 week ago, then keep
> > the f\Friday tapes back to the last full
> > backup. Every 30 to 90 days make a full backup
> > - a copy of everything on the system no matter
> > when it was last changed. Often these are kept
> > for several years.
> > This is done because the possibility exists
> > that the disks in the server will crash & lose
> > the information stored on them. More than one
> > exists because it's possible for things to
> > subtly go wrong slowly, like termites invading
> > a house. You want to have a version of the
> > house in the 'no termites' condition.
> > The only reason not to keep these tapes is the
> > cost of the tapes. What struck me today was
> > this professor urging her college students to
> > save their e-mails - wouldn't it make more
> > sense for her to simply talk to the
> > university's IS department?
> > So if you folks are interested in preserving
> > personal communications, the people to talk to
> > are ISP owners & other operators of POP
> > servers.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Anne Ogborn
>
>
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