snail mail vs. email

adavidow — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:52:44 +0000

>on paper ... would you redact the names?

It isn't clear what degree of privacy we would offer if we made snail mail public. We're talking about two different sets of files--information available to researchers, and information available to casual browsers (some of whom may be researchers) on the web.

My initial thought was that we just needed to ensure that email addresses are protected from spammers. It also seemed prudent to remove phone numbers. Names? Addresses? If I were making a few pieces of correspondence available to the public from someone who is not a public figure, would I necessarily want (or would the person who submitted email or snailmail necessarily want) the attention possible? I am not convinced that we wouldn't redact snailmail in these circumstances; I am also not convinced that much mail is worth making public if we need to also make it "anonymous."

This is all a long-winded way of saying that the original analogy doesn't seem appropriate. Most archives don't publish snailmail from private people, and from public figures, where unredacted snailmail is made available, we often have to wait until all correspondents (or at least the primary correspondents) are dead.

Archiving email

dbear — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 00:50:00 +0000

Dear Ari,

Why do you feel it differs from your policies on archiving snail mail? If someone gave you a collection of correspondence, on paper, would you redact the names? I assume not.

David Bearman

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snail mail vs. email

Archiving email