History
Initial work on ePADD began in 2010 based on the dissertation work of Sudheendra Hangal, then a Ph.D. candidate in the Computer Science department at Stanford. The ePADD project received funding from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission from 2012-2015 to develop the first full version of the software package. From 2015-2018, the project received funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to develop a further six versions of ePADD.The ePADD project received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to continue development on the software from 2020-2021. In 2021, the ePADD project received funding from the Email Archiving : Building Capacity and Community grant program, administered by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to integrate preservation functionality into ePADD.
Over the past 10 years, ePADD has pioneered the application of machine learning and natural language processing to confront challenges that collection donors, archivists, and researchers routinely face in donating, administering, preserving, or accessing email collections. This includes screening email for confidential, restricted, or legally-protected information, preparing email for preservation, and making the resulting files (which incorporates preservation actions taken by the repository) discoverable and accessible to researchers.
Phase 1 - National Historical Publications and Records Commission (2013-2015)
About
ePADD Phase 1 was developed from 2013-2015 by staff of the Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries (SUL), Stanford University.
Funding
The software was developed with grant funding provided through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). Additional funding was provided through SUL’s Payson J. Treat Fund for Library Program Development and Research.
Project Partners
Terry Capatano, Columbia University
Steven Davis, Columbia University
Dina Sokolova, Columbia University
Riccardo Ferrante, Smithsonian Institution Archives
Linda Schmitz Fuhrig, Smithsonian Institution Archives
Advisory Board
Jeremy Leighton John, Curator of eMANUSCRIPTS, The British Library
Monica Lam, Professor, Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Phillip R. Malone, Professor of Law & Director, Juelsgaard Intellectual Property and Innovation Clinic, Stanford University
Pam Maples, Innovation Director, John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships, Stanford University
Meg McAleer, Senior Archives Specialist, Manuscripts, Library of Congress
Chris Prom, Assistant University Archivist & Associate Professor of Library Administration University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne
Ben Shneiderman, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland
Jeff Ubois, Program Officer, MacArthur Foundation
Phase 2 - Institute for Museum and Library Services (2015-2018)
About
ePADD Phase 2 was developed from 2015-2018 by staff of the Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries (SUL), Stanford University, in collaboration with partners at Harvard University, the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and University of California, Irvine.
Funding
Funding for ePADD Phase 2 was provided through an Institute of Museum & Library Studies (IMLS) National Leadership Grant (NLG) for Libraries, which supports projects that address challenges faced by the library and archive fields and that have the potential to advance practice in those fields. The grant proposal can be accessed here.
Project Partners
Skip Kendall, Senior Collection Development and Electronic Records Archivist, Harvard University
Margo Padilla, Strategic Programs Manager, Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO)
Christopher Prom, Professor, University Library, Assistant University Archivist, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Audra Eagle Yun, Head of Special Collections and Archives & University Archivist, University of California, Irvine
Advisory Board
Sherri Berger, Product Manager, Access & Publishing Group, California Digital Library
Andrew Byers, Visiting Assistant Professor, Duke University
Jackie Dooley, Program Officer, OCLC Research
Mike Giarlo, Digital Library Software Engineer and Architect, Stanford University Libraries
Marie Hicks, Assistant Professor of History, Illinois Institute of Technology
Peter Hirtle, Senior Policy Advisor, Cornell University Libraries
Lise Jaillant, Lecturer (Assistant Professor), Loughborough University
Jeremy Leighton John, Curator, British Library
Christopher (Cal) Lee, Associate Professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Evelyn McLellan, President, Artefactual Systems
Maria Matienzo, Assistant Director for Digital Strategy and Access, Stanford University Libraries
T. Christian Miller, Author, ProPublica
Jessica Moran, Assistant Digital Archivist, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand
David Rosenthal, LOCKSS Program
Marc A. Smith, Connected Action consulting group
Terry Winograd, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University Libraries
Kam Woods, Research Scientist, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Phase 3 - Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2020-2021)
About
Phase 3 of the ePADD Project ran from December 2020 until March 2021 and was led by the staff of Stanford University Libraries in collaboration with partners from Harvard University and the University of Manchester.
Funding
Funding for ePADD Phase 3 was provided through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Project Partners
This project is a collaboration between Harvard University, the University of Manchester, and Stanford University.
Tricia Patterson, Digital Preservation Analyst, Harvard University
Stephen Abrams, Head of Digital Preservation, Harvard University
Ian Gifford, Library Application Development Manager, University of Manchester
Jochen Farwer, Application Developer, University of Manchester
Jessica Smith, Creative Arts Archivist, University of Manchester
Glynn Edwards, Assistant Director, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University
Sally DeBauche, Digital Archivist, Stanford University
Project Affiliates
Amuse Labs
Phase 4 - Email Archiving : Building Community and Capacity (2021-2022)
About the ePADD+ Project
As critical documentation of life in the digital age, the preservation of email is central to the mission and values of archives and archivists. The project, entitled Integrating Preservation Functionality into ePADD (ePADD+), integrates long-term email preservation functionality into Stanford University’s open source email archiving software program, ePADD. The enhanced product will provide the digital archiving community with a tool comprehensively supporting the email archiving lifecycle more robustly.
Because the requirements of preservation infrastructure and workflows vary greatly across institutions, the enhanced ePADD will support functions for local customization and extensibility. The three project partners - Harvard University, the University of Manchester, and Stanford University - will each utilize this capability to configure ePADD for their different organizational contexts and preservation repository infrastructures. The software development activity will align with open source best practices in order to support wider community contribution to ePADD and better software sustainability.
The proposed activities are a direct outcome of recommendations from The Future of Email Archives report, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which emphasizes the importance of better interoperability and integration between the many disparate email archiving tools that have surfaced in the digital archiving community.
Funding
Funding for this project was provided by Email Archives: Building Capacity and Community (EA:BCC), administered by the University of Illinois. The EA:BCC program is a re-grant program from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation that seeks to build email archiving capacity in archives, libraries, and museums.
Project Partners
This project is a collaboration between Harvard University, the University of Manchester, and Stanford University.
Stephen Abrams, Head of Digital Preservation, Harvard University (PI)
Tricia Patterson, Senior Digital Preservation Specialist, Harvard University (Co-Project Manager)
Ian Gifford, Library Application Development Manager, University of Manchester
Jochen Farwer, Application Developer, University of Manchester
Jessica Smith, Creative Arts Archivist, University of Manchester (Co-Project Manager)
Tom Higgins, Software Developer, University of Manchester
Paul Carlyle, Curator for Non-Conformist Collections, University of Manchester (Co-Project Manager)
Glynn Edwards, Assistant Director, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University
Sally DeBauche, Digital Archivist, Stanford University
Project Affiliates
Amuse Labs
Related Resources
Updated ePADD+ Functional Requirements, Version 2, released October 2021
Acknowledgments
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