Preservation metadata

Preservation metadata is an essential component of most digital preservation strategies. As an increasing proportion of the world’s information output shifts from analog to digital form, it is necessary to develop new strategies to preserve this information for the long-term. Preservation metadata is information that supports and documents the digital preservation process. Preservation metadata is sometimes considered a subset of technical or administrative metadata.

Preservation metadata stores technical details on the format, structure and use of the digital content, the history of all actions performed on the resource including changes and decisions, the authenticity information such as technical features or custody history, and the responsibilities and rights information applicable to preservation actions. [http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/topics/32.html National Library of Australia. Preserving Acces to Digital Information. Retrieved April 14, 2008] ]

Preservation metadata often includes the following information: Provenance: Who has had custody/ownership of the digital object?Authenticity: Is the digital object what it purports to be?Preservation Activity: What has been done to preserve the digital object?Technical Environment: What is needed to render and use the digital object?Rights Management: What intellectual property rights must be observed? [http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis Library of Congress. PREMIS: Preservation Metadata Maintenance Activity. Retrieved April 12, 2008 []

Digital materials require constant maintenance and migration to new formats as technology changes. In order to survive into the future, digital objects need preservation metadata that can exist independently from the systems which were used to create them. Without preservation metadata, digital material will be lost. “While a print book with a broken spine can be easily re-bound, a digital object that has become corrupted or obsolete is often impossible (or prohibitively expensive) to repair”. [ [http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july04/lavoie/07lavoie.html Lavoie, B. & Dempsey, L. (2004). "Thirteen ways of looking at...digital preservation", "D-Lib Magazine", 10 (7/8). Retrieved April 1, 2008] ] Preservation metadata provides the vital information which will make “digital objects self-documenting across time.”

Preservation metadata is a new and developing field. The Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) is a broad conceptual model which many organizations have followed in developing new preservation metadata element sets. [ [http://nost.gsfc.nasa.gov/isoas/ref_model.html Reference model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS)] ] Early projects in preservation metadata in the library community include CEDARS, NEDLIB, The National Library of Australia and the OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata. Following on from this work, the Working Group created the "Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata: Final Report of the PREMIS Working Group" which was released in May 2005. [ [http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/pmwg/ OCLC/RLG PREMIS (PREservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies)] ] The ongoing work of maintaining, supporting, and coordinating future revisions to the PREMIS Data Dictionary is undertaken through the PREMIS Maintenance Activity, hosted by the Library of Congress.

References

See also

*Digital preservation
*
*Metadata
*Digital library

External links

* [http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/MD-STR~5.pdf CEDARS (2000) "Metadata for Digital Preservation: The CEDARS Project Outline Specification"]
* [http://www.diglib.org/preserve.htm Digital Library Federation page on Digital Preservation]
* [http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ Digital Preservation (Library of Congress)]
* [http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/dpm/dpm-eng/resources.html Digital Preservation Management: Implementing Short-Term Strategies for Long-Term Problems. Cornell University Library]
* [http://www.dublincore.org/groups/preservation/ Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Preservation Community]
* [http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/standards/intrometadata/index.html "Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information". Online Edition, version 2.1, By Tony Gill, Anne J. Gilliland, Mary S. Woodley, Edited by Murtha Baca]
* [http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/topics/32.html National Library of Australia, Preserving Access to Digital Information]
* [http://www.natlib.govt.nz/files/4initiatives_metaschema.pdf National Library of New Zealand Metadata Standards Framework - Preservation Metadata]
* [http://www.niso.org/committees/committee_au.html NISO - Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images]
* [http://nedlib.kb.nl/results/NEDLIBmetadata.pdf NEDLIB (2000) "Metadata for Long Term Preservation"]
* [http://www.oclc.org/support/documentation/pdf/da_metadata_elements.pdf OCLC Digital Archive Metadata Elements]
* [http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/pmwg/ OCLC/RLG PREMIS (PREservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies)]
* [http://nost.gsfc.nasa.gov/isoas/ref_model.html Reference model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS)]