Email Capture at the Radical Archives of Philadelphia

Email Capture at the

Radical Archives of Philadelphia

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

Introduction To Email Capture(In General)

• Identification

• Preservation

• Access

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

Today’s Examples: RAP Emails

Specific Steps: Identification

• Download Mozilla Thunderbird• Link to an email account – In our case, [email protected]– 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

Specific Steps: Preservation• Find the location of your locally saved email

messages– Note: it will look something like this: “C:\Users\

[username]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\[name].default\ImapMail”

• Labels/folders created in gmail account will be represented here:

Specific Steps: Preservation• Find the location of your locally saved email

messages– Note: it will look something like this: “C:\Users\

[username]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\[name].default\ImapMail”

• Labels/folders created in gmail account will be represented here:

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.

Mbox2xml

Viewed in Browser: Index

Viewed in Browser: Messages

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.

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.

Radical Archives Contact

• Website: www.philllyradicalarchives.org• Email: [email protected]• Contact me: [email protected]