local e-mail digital archive

[Emma Downing]

Are any  of you making attempts to create a local e-mail digital repository?
I  was thinking it could be done - on a voluntary basis I presume - just by
offering an automatic cc: digital reserve option for each patron's email.
There may be privacy and copyright concerns but I imagine if it is voluntary
that would be okay.
I was reading a review of an anthology of Love Letters eg Zelda to F.Scott
Fitzgerald.  The reviewer suggested that recipients in today's world have to
make sure that they "use the Save As and Print buttons".  It would be good
if we can catch them at the send stage. For example in our library we have a
number of army spouses e-mailing  partners away on postings to East Timor -
I can imagine that this sort of subset of society  would be an interesting
group of e-mails for preservation as a piece of social history.

I would also be interested to hear if anyone is setting up a digital local
collection, eg for local web-sites such as running groups etc as opposed to
e-print archives which seem to be more for academic papers.

I would appreciate any feedback from libraries attempting the above.

Emma Downing