Reflecting a trend that could greatly aid overwhelmed educators and administrators, a handful of new technology companies are springing up to deal with the problem of eMail overload, which is now often considered a much bigger workplace problem than traditional eMail spam.

eMail in-boxes in a growing number of schools and other institutions are overflowing these days, partly because of what some are calling “colleague spam”—that is, too many people are indiscriminately hitting the “reply to all” button or copying their co-workers on trivial messages, such as inviting 100 colleagues to partake of brownies in the kitchen. A good chunk of today’s eMails also are coming from brand-new sources, like social and business networking sites such as Facebook Inc. and LinkedIn Corp., or text messages forwarded from cell phones.

To date, school employees have largely dealt with the problem manually. Marc Liebman, superintendent of the Berryessa Union School District in California, has resorted to ignoring his eMail, especially if it “doesn’t have an interesting title or [is] not from someone I know,” he says. Though some important messages might not get the quick attention they need, Liebman says, ignoring eMail “is a survival strategy in a busy world.”

Others, such as Keith Krueger, chief executive of the Consortium for School Networking, find themselves working well outside of normal work hours—even while on vacation—just to get up to speed. In this day and age, “you never are away from the office,” Krueger says.

“These people are in pain,” says Matt Brezina, the 26-year-old co-founder of San Francisco’s Xobni Corp., which tries to help people better organize and search the eMail and personal contact load they already have.

To do so, Xobni’s product places a set of features on top of a customer’s eMail in-box, such as “profiles” of online contacts (complete with photos) and quick links to set up appointments. The nine-person company says it has about 1,000 people globally testing the product, including salespeople, recruiters, and marketing managers who use eMail frequently, and expects to release it broadly early next year.