Sumerian clay tablet, this Sumerian clay tablet from the Powerhouse Museum collection (85/452) is a receipt Drehem to Alulu for five sheep, one lamb and four grass-fed male kids to be used for a royal offering. The cuneiform script is still quite visible 4000 years after it was written.
For some time now here at the Powerhouse Museum we have been watching and thinking about email - with interest but also some concern. As a science and technology museum we are interested in new technologies - the impact they have on society and how they which they alter the way we live. Email has changed the way we work; talk to our colleagues, our friends and relatives; the way we use language and perhaps even the way we think.
But we have another concern about email. How much of what we write today will be available to our kids tomorrow?
At the Powerhouse we routinely use paper based records for our research. Our archives include letters written in the past and from these we can learn about events, relationships, how people thought and felt. We rely on this primary evidence to helps us understand our history.
While we know that paper records properly stored can last for hundreds of years electronic records – like email – may not be available in twenty. This is because computers, software and media quickly become obsolete and the information, including email records, cannot be retrieved. Indeed there is something in the nature of emails that people are less inclined to deliberately file them, to value them as a permanent record as they would as a hand written letter.
The Powerhouse Museum is delighted to be embarking on a project with nineMSN called Email Australia in which we are asking people to submit their favourite emails which will then become part of Australia first email archive.
To participate this important project go to emailaustralia.com.au