Current Thinking on Digital Preservation: Role of Metadata Oya Y. Rieger Coordinator, Library Office

1
Current Thinking on Digital PreservationRole
of Metadata Oya Y. RiegerCoordinator, Library
Office of Distributed LearningCornell University
Libraryoyr1_at_cornell.edu

• May 2000

2
what is preservation metadata?
3
Digital Preservation

• Managed activities to ensure continued access to
  digital materials in the face of rapidly changing
  technological and organizational elements

4
stakeholders money staff policies legal
system politics
networks
ORGANIZATION
TECHNOLOGY
5
Preservation Service Challenges

• Combination of managerial, computational,
  practical, philosophical issues
• Nested configuration of technical infrastructure

6
file format, compression, encryption, etc.

• Integrity
• Contextual integrity
• Provenance
• Usability and references

storage medium, file naming, directory
structuring, storage conditions, etc.
storage media drive, storage management software
server computer, retrieval software, scripts,
programs, OS
networks
distributed protocols, programs, etc.
client computer, software
7
Preservation Service Goals

• Detect preservation threats and take action
• Facilitate preservation administration
• Promote preventive measures to reduce risks

All roads lead to metadata
8
Preservation Metadata

• Knowledge-base necessary to support preservation
  administration
• Organizational Strategies
• technology management
• Technical Strategies
• enduring care, refreshing, migration, emulation,
  technology preservation, digital archeology

.
9
Preservation Metadata

• Extensible metadata
• Cover all types of digital objects
• Accommodate different technological
  implementations
• Meet needs of different communities

10
1. Extensible Metadata
life cycle
determine
manifested in
metadata
people institutions
digital information
create and manage
11
Preservation Metadata

• Extensible metadata
• Cover all types of digital objects
• Accommodate different technological
  implementations
• Meet needs of different communities
• Effective metadata
• Cost-effective
• Just-for-preservation

12
2. Effective Metadata
13
Current Preservation Metadata Research

• Open Archival Information System (OAIS)
• Cedars, Pandora, NEDLIB, National Library of the
  Netherlands
• http//ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/nost/isoas/us/overview.
  html
• OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata
• NISO Committee on Technical Metadata for Digital
  Still Images

14
OAIS
Data Management
Access
producer
consumer
Ingest
Archival Storage
Administration
management
15
OAIS Archival Information Package
packaging information
AIP
Preservation Description Information
Content Information

• Reference Information
• Provenance Information
• Context Information
• Fixity Information

• Data Object
• Representation Information

16
Current Preservation Metadata Research

• Open Archival Information System (OAIS)
• Cedars, Pandora, NEDLIB, National Library of the
  Netherlands
• OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata
• http//www.oclc.org/digitalpreservation/
• NISO Committee on Technical Metadata for Digital
  Still Images
• http//www.niso.org/commitau.html

17
Concluding Thoughts

• Focus of preservation metadata is more on
  dictionaries than functionality
• There is insufficient empirical data on loss and
  a lack of consensus on essence
• Librarians, IT specialists, researchers, and
  archivist are learning to communicate
  collaborate
• Digital preservation research is getting very
  trendy especially digital asset management
• European and Australian projects are highly
  coordinated
• US projects are very diverse little
  coordination but a good level of information
  sharing
• Emphasis on third party certified archives
• We cannot preserve everything!