Presentation on email capture done at the Radical Archives of Philadelphia (http://www.phillyradicalarchives.org/). Presented at Archivists Being Awesome (June 17 meeting).

1. Email Capture
at the
Radical Archives of Philadelphia

2. Introduction
(To the Radical Archives of Philadelphia)
• Collect the material history of progressive
organizations, activists and events in Philadelphia
• Housed at the Wooden Shoe Bookstore & Info
Shop
• Collections Include: RNC Protest Material; Philly
National Lawyers Guild Papers; Books Through
Bars Records
• Works with organizations to promote causes of
both the organization and the RAP
• Works with other independent collections to pool
resources: Community Archives Consortium

3. Introduction To Email Capture
(In General)
• Identification
• Preservation
• Access

4. Introduction To Email Capture
(at the RAP)
• Identification
– Listserv ; Mailing list of organization
– Outward – pointing communication
• Preservation
– Messages downloaded and reformatted
• Access
– Saved copies for us and dispersal

5. Today’s Examples:
RAP Emails

6. Specific Steps: Identification
• Download Mozilla Thunderbird
• Link to an email account
– In our case, radicalarchivesofphila@gmail.com
– Use IMAP (This creates an open portal to the
Gmail server. There might be benefits to using
POP, buy me a drink to hear more)
• Use this email address to sign up for mailing
lists
– Create appropriate labels for each
organization/mailing list

7. Specific Steps: Preservation
• Find the location of your locally saved email
messages
– Note: it will look something like this:
“C:Users[username]AppDataRoamingThunderbirdProfiles[name].de
faultImapMail”
• Labels/folders created in gmail account will be
represented here:

8. Specific Steps: Preservation
• Find the location of your locally saved email
messages
– Note: it will look something like this:
“C:Users[username]AppDataRoamingThunderbirdProfiles[name].de
faultImapMail”
• Labels/folders created in gmail account will be
represented here:

9. Specific Steps: Preservation
• Download Mbox2xml
– http://tools.elit.nl/mbox2xml.php
• Convert mbox files to xml
– Simple interface, can make decisions about what
to include.
– Includes style sheets so that messages can be
viewed in browser of choice.

10. Mbox2xml

11. Viewed in Browser: Index

12. Viewed in Browser: Messages

13. Specific Steps: Access
• XML messages are saved on thumb drives
• Researchers are invited to use
messages, viewed through browser
• In terms of out-ward pointing
communication, researchers are welcome to
have copies of messages. We copy messages
to their drive.

14. Issues & Considerations
• RAP, to date, does not have an electronic
workstation (please make checks out to me)
• Message fixity
– One option to simply show messages through
Thunderbird (skip several steps).
– This would allow the researcher to make changes
to the messages.
– Having the messages available through a browser
keeps researchers from making changes.

15. Radical Archives Contact
• Website: www.philllyradicalarchives.org
• Email: info@phillyradicalarchives.org
• Contact me: scott@phillyradicalarchives.org