In conjunction with the Powerhouse Museum, Windows Live Hotmail has created Email Australia as a means to permanently record our use of e-mail every day. With such a high volume of use in our personal and professional lives, e-mail really is vital to our communication, but it's currently in danger of not being properly recorded.

It might be hard to believe that electronic communication is difficult to archive, but it is! Think about how hard it is to play back cassettes and VHS tapes now. Rapid advances in technology mean that the equipment currently used to create and read communication material may not be in use in the future, rendering our electronic communications unreadable by future generations.

This is why we need you to help us capture a snapshot of contemporary society and the way we use e-mail as part of our daily conversations. From the everyday e-mails that raise a smile to the touching tales from friends and loved ones, Email Australia will capture e-mail usage from all sorts and all walks of life. Even the ones you wished you hadn't sent have a home here!

The Powerhouse Museum's technology curator Matthew Connell brings his experience archiving communication in all its forms, from stone tablets to letters from hundreds of years ago, to assist in the successful archiving of e-mail.