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Michigan State University, through its research and outreach unit MATRIX: Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online in partnership with H-Net, has received grant funding of $189,067 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to support a two-year project for the preservation of the H-Net electronic mailing list archives. The project is entitled: “H-Net: Preserving and Improving Access to Specialized Electronic Mailing List Archives.” MSU will provide matching funds.
MATRIX seeks to advance the state of electronic mail preservation by assessing and improving digital preservation practices for the H-Net electronic mailing lists—the largest and oldest online collection of born-digital, contemporaneously generated, and content-moderated arts, humanities and social science material on the Internet, including more than 160 free interactive lists containing more than one million e-mail messages. Preservation of these lists will ensure that future scholars have access to the information in historical postings.
With the guidance of an archival advisory board, MATRIX’s electronic records archivist will assess existing H-Net preservation practices; research the current state of electronic mail archiving; and develop a comprehensive preservation plan for the H-Net electronic mailing list archives. At the same time, MATRIX is conducting research into text mining clustering methods to improve access to information in the H-Net e-mail lists.
Progress on the project, recommended best practices, and the results of the H-Net implementation will be disseminated and published for the benefit of other discussion list providers and the broader electronic records community. MATRIX also plans to secure OCLC, the Library Congress, or another institution as a backup, alternative repository for long-term preservation.
For more information and for the current status of the project, please refer to the project website at
http://www.h-net.org/archive/.
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