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Hal's Column
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Saturday, May 31, 2008, 3:00 AM
Keeping e-mail isn't that tough By Hal Tarleton | Daily Times Opinion Editor Gov. Mike Easley appointed a special commission to study the handling of e-mails by state employees. Although the issue isn't entirely settled (a lawsuit over destruction of e-mail records is still in court), it appears that the state will address the issue with training for state employees and more storage capacity for archiving e-mail. Fifteen years ago, even 10 years ago, this discussion would never have taken place. But e-mail has become ubiquitous. Both internal and external communications now take place in cyberspace. The inter-office mail, the memorandum envelopes, the formal letters, the hand-written notes have all been replaced, to one degree or another, by e-mails. From a journalist's point of view, the wonder is why would anyone question whether e-mails should be treated differently from the memos, letters and notes of years gone by. E-mail has unquestionably become the preferred method of personal and professional communication for many, many people. Count me as one of them. E-mail usually beats telephone calls for getting up with someone. E-mail gets delivered even if your source is not at her desk. There's no "telephone tag," no voice mail that might not be clear, no dead ends. Corporations and government agencies recognize how efficient e-mail can be. They post key e-mail addresses on their Web sites. If I want to contact the communications director for the Department of Commerce, I look on the Web site for the name and e-mail link. A one-sentence request for an interview can be handled more quickly via e-mail than in a phone call, and you get written confirmation in reply. No misunderstandings. E-mail has also been a boon to family relations. Although we seldom talk on the phone or actually see each other face-to-face, both my siblings and my wife's family members stay in touch and up to date with each other's lives through e-mail with multiple addressees. Some officials on Easley's e-mail task force suggested that archiving e-mail would be a lot of trouble. One estimate, reported by The Associated Press, said that archiving five years' worth of state employee e-mail would cost $375,000 for data storage. Considering that newspaper ads in the past few days offered 4 gigabyte "thumb drives" for $20 and 1 terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) external hard drives for $199, it's hard to believe the state's estimate. I make a conscious effort to "archive" my own e-mails, both at home and at the office. I try to keep my in-box nearly empty. I set up folders in various categories, such as "letters to the editor" and "press association" and file incoming e-mails in those folders as appropriate. Two years later, I can locate and pull up the e-mail asking me about headline problems in our new design software. I have an e-mail from 2005 (when my current computer replaced an older model). I also have my e-mail preferences set to "never" delete "sent mail." As a result, I have almost 5,000 files in my "sent mail" folder with no apparent strain on my computer. This takes some diligence to file away e-mails as they come in, but it's no more difficult than Easley's "delete" method. tarleton@wilsontimes.com | 265-7812
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