CA "Super-metadata may well play a crucial role both in facilitating access to DDOs and in providing a means of selecting and managing the maintenance of these DDOs over time."
Phrases
<P1> The preservation of the intellectual content of DDOs brings into focus a major issue: "the integrity and authenticity of the information as originally recorded" (Graham, 1997). (p.365). <P2> The emergence of dynamic and living DDOs is presenting challenges to the conventional understanding of the preservation of digital resources and is forcing many organizations to reevaluate their strategies in the light of these rapid advances in information sources. The use of appropriate metadata is recognized to be essential in ensuring continued access to dynamic and living DDOs, but the standards for such metadata are not yet fully understood or developed. (p.369)
Conclusions
RQ How can we decide what to preserve ? How can we assure long-term access? What will be the cost of electronic archiving? Which metadata schema will be in use 10 years from now, and how will migration be achieved?
Type
Journal
Title
Digital preservation: Where we are, where we're going, where we need to be
CA Digital preservation will begin to come into its own. The past five years were about building access; now standards are coalescing and more focus is being paid to actual preservation strategies. Major legal obstacles include the DMCA, which restricts what institutions can do to preserve digital information. There are economic challenges, and we do not really know how much digital preservation will cost.
Phrases
<P1> There will be change, there is no guarantee that you can pick a technology and stay with it for ten years. We have to have an awareness of technological change and what's coming -- we listen to peers and the larger institutions that are taking leading and bleeding edge roles, and we make wise decisions. So in this case it is OK to be trailing edge and choose something that is well-established." (p.3)
SOW
DC OAIS emerged out of an initiative spearheaded by NASA's Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems. It has been shaped and promoted by the RLG and OCLC. Several international projects have played key roles in shaping the OAIS model and adapting it for use in libraries, archives and research repositories. OAIS-modeled repositories include the CEDARS Project, Harvard's Digital Repository, Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB), the Library of Congress' Archival Information Package for audiovisual materials, MIT's D-Space, OCLC's Digital Archive and TERM: the Texas Email Repository Model.
Type
Journal
Title
Archives and the information superhighway: Current status and future challenges
CA One struggle facing us is to convince the rest of society that the ÔÇ£information superhighwayÔÇØ is very much about records, evidence and ÔÇ£recordnessÔÇØ.
Phrases
<P1> It has been argued that existing computer software applications harm recordkeeping because they are remiss in capturing the full breadth of contextual information required to document transactions and create records -- records which can serve as reliable evidence of the transactions which created them. In place of records, these systems are producing data which fails to relate the who, what, when, where, and why of human communications -- attributes which are required for record evidence. This argument has found both saliency and support in other work conducted by the Netherlands and the World Bank, which have both noted that existing software applications fail to provide for the capture of the required complement of descriptive attributes required for proper recordkeeping. These examples point to the vast opportunity presented to archivists to position themselves as substantive contributors to information infrastructure discussions. Archivists are capable of pointing out what will be necessary to create records in the electronic environment which, in the words of David Bearman, meet the requirements of ÔÇ£business acceptable commincation. (p.87) <warrant>
Conclusions
RQ Can archivists provide access to information in the unstable electronic records environment we find ourselves in today?
Type
Electronic Journal
Title
Review: Some Comments on Preservation Metadata and the OAIS Model
CA Criticizes some of the limitations of OAIS and makes suggestions for improvements and clarifications. Also suggests that OAIS may be too library-centric, to the determinent of archival and especially recordkeeping needs. "In this article I have tried to articulate some of the main requirements for the records and archival community in preserving (archival) records. Based on this, the conclusion has to be that some adaptations to the [OAIS] model and metadata set would be necessary to meet these requirements. This concerns requirements such as the concept of authenticity of records, information on the business context of records and on relationships between records ('documentary context')."(p. 20)
Phrases
<P1> It requires records managers and archivists (and perhaps other information professionals) to be aware of these differences [in terminology] and to make a translation of such terms to their own domain. (p. 15) <P2> When applying the metadata model for a wider audience, more awareness of the issue of terminology is required, for instance by including clear definitions of key terms. (p. 15) <P3> The extent to which the management of objects can be influenced differs with respect to the type of objects. In the case of (government) records, legislation governs their creation and management, whereas, in the case of publications, the influence will be mostly based on agreements between producers, publishers and preservers. (p. 16) <P4> [A]lthough the suggestion may sometimes be otherwise, preservation metadata do not only apply to what is under the custody of a cultural or other preserving institution, but should be applied to the whole lifecycle of digital objects. ... Preservation can be viewed as part of maintenance. <warrant> (p. 16) <P5> [B]y taking library community needs as leading (albeit implicitly), the approach is already restricting the types of digital objects. Managing different types of 'digital objects', e.g. publications and records, may require not entirely similar sets of metadata. (p. 16) <P6> Another issue is that of the requirements governing the preservation processes. ... There needs to be insight and, as a consequence, also metadata about the preservation strategies, policies and methods, together with the context in which the preservation takes place. <warrant> (p. 16) <P7> [W]hat do we want to preserve? Is it the intellectual content with the functionality it has to have in order to make sense and achieve its purpose, or is it the digital components that are necessary to reproduce it or both? (p. 16-17) <P8> My view is that 'digital objects' should be seen as objects having both conceptual and technical aspects that are closely interrelated. As a consequence of the explanation given above, a digital object may consist of more than one 'digital component'. The definition given in the OAIS model is therefore insufficient. (p. 17) <P9> [W]e have no fewer than five metadata elements that could contain information on what should be rendered and presented on the screen. How all these elements relate to each other, if at all, is unclear. (p. 17) <P10> What we want to achieve ... is that in the future we will still be able to see, read and understand the documents or other information entities that were once produced for a certain purpose and in a certain context. In trying to achieve this, we of course need to preserve these digital components, but, as information technology will evolve, these components have to be migrated or in some cases emulated to be usable on future hard- and software platforms. (p. 17) <P11> I would like to suggest including an element that reflects the original technical environment. (p. 18) <P12> Records, according to the recently published ISO records management standard 15489, are 'information created, received and maintained as evidence and information by an organisation or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business'. ... The main requirements for records to serve as evidence or authoritative information sources are ... authenticity and integrity, and knowledge about the business context and about the interrelationship between records (e.g. in a case file). <warrant> (p. 18) <P13> It would have been helpful if there had been more acknowledgement of the issue of authenticity and the requirements for it, and if the Working Group had provided some background information about its view and considerations on this aspect and to what extent it is included or not. (p. 19) <P14> In order to be able to preserve (archival) records it will ... be necessary to extend the information model with another class of information that refers to business context. Such a subset could provide a structure for describing what in archival terminology is called information about 'provenance' (with a different meaning from that in OAIS). (p. 19) <P15> In order to accommodate the identified complexity it is necessary to distinguish at least between the following categories of relationships: relationships between intellectual objects ... in the archival context this is referred to as 'documentary context'; relationships between the (structural) components of one intellectual object ... ; [and] relationships between digital components. (p. 19-20) <P16> [T]he issue of appraisal and disposition of records has to be included. In this context the recently published records management standard (ISO 15489) may serve as a useful framework. It would make the OAIS model even more widely applicable. (p. 20)
Conclusions
RQ "There are some issues ... which need further attention. They concern on the one hand the scope and underlying concepts of the OAIS model and the resulting metadata set as presented, and on the other hand the application of the model and metadata set in a records and archival environment. ... [T]he distinction between physical and conceptual or intellectual aspects of a digital object should be made more explicit and will probably have an impact on the model and metadata set also. More attention also needs to be given to the relationship between the (preservation) processes and the metadata. ... In assessing the needs of the records and archival community, the ISO records management standard 15489 may serve as a very useful framework. Such an exercise would also include a test for applicability of the model and metadata set for record-creating organisations and, as such, broaden the view of the OAIS model." (p. 20)
SOW
DC OAIS emerged out of an initiative spearheaded by NASA's Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems. It has been shaped and promoted by the RLG and OCLC. Several international projects have played key roles in shaping the OAIS model and adapting it for use in libraries, archives and research repositories. OAIS-modeled repositories include the CEDARS Project, Harvard's Digital Repository, Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB), the Library of Congress' Archival Information Package for audiovisual materials, MIT's D-Space, OCLC's Digital Archive and TERM: the Texas Email Repository Model.
Type
Report
Title
RLG Best Practice Guidelines for Encoded Archival Description
These award-winning guidelines, released in August 2002, were developed by the RLG EAD Advisory Group to provide practical, community-wide advice for encoding finding aids. They are designed to: facilitate interoperability of resource discovery by imposing a basic degree of uniformity on the creation of valid EAD-encoded documents; encourage the inclusion of particular elements, and; develop a set of core data elements. 
Publisher
Research Libraries Group
Publication Location
Mountain View, CA, USA
Language
English
Critical Arguements
<CA> The objectives of the guidelines are: 1. To facilitate interoperability of resource discovery by imposing a basic degree of uniformity on the creation of valid EAD-encoded documents and to encourage the inclusion of elements most useful for retrieval in a union index and for display in an integrated (cross-institutional) setting; 2. To offer researchers the full benefits of XML in retrieval and display by developing a set of core data elements to improve resource discovery. It is hoped that by identifying core elements and by specifying "best practice" for those elements, these guidelines will be valuable to those who create finding aids, as well as to vendors and tool builders; 3. To contribute to the evolution of the EAD standard by articulating a set of best practice guidelines suitable for interinstitutional and international use. These guidelines can be applied to both retrospective conversion of legacy finding aids and the creation of new finding aids.  
Conclusions
<RQ>
SOW
<DC> "RLG organized the EAD working group as part of our continuing commitment to making archival collections more accessible on the Web. We offer RLG Archival Resources, a database of archival materials; institutions are encouraged to submit their finding aids to this database." ... "This set of guidelines, the second version promulgated by RLG, was developed between October 2001 and August 2002 by the RLG EAD Advisory Group. This group consisted of ten archivists and digital content managers experienced in creating and managing EAD-encoded finding aids at repositories in the United States and the United Kingdom."
CA This is the first of four articles describing Geospatial Standards and the standards bodies working on these standards. This article will discuss what geospatial standards are and why they matter, identify major standards organizations, and list the characteristics of successful geospatial standards.
Conclusions
RQ Which federal and international standards have been agreed upon since this article's publication?
SOW
DC FGDC approved the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (FGDC-STD-001-1998) in June 1998. FGDC is a 19-member interagency committee composed of representatives from the Executive Office of the President, Cabinet-level and independent agencies. The FGDC is developing the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) in cooperation with organizations from State, local and tribal governments, the academic community, and the private sector. The NSDI encompasses policies, standards, and procedures for organizations to cooperatively produce and share geographic data.
This document provides some background on preservation metadata for those interested in digital preservation. It first attempts to explain why preservation metadata is seen as an essential part of most digital preservation strategies. It then gives a broad overview of the functional and information models defined in the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) and describes the main elements of the Cedars outline preservation metadata specification. The next sections take a brief look at related metadata initiatives, make some recommendations for future work and comment on cost issues. At the end there are some brief recommendations for collecting institutions and the creators of digital content followed by some suggestions for further reading.
Critical Arguements
CA "This document is intended to provide a brief introduction to current preservation metadata developments and introduce the outline metadata specifications produced by the Cedars project. It is aimed in particular at those who may have responsibility for digital preservation in the UK further and higher education community, e.g. senior staff in research libraries and computing services. It should also be useful for those undertaking digital content creation (digitisation) initiatives, although it should be noted that specific guidance on this is available elsewhere. The guide may also be of interest to other kinds of organisations that have an interest in the long-term management of digital resources, e.g. publishers, archivists and records managers, broadcasters, etc. This document aimes to provide: A rationale for the creation and maintenance of preservation metadata to support digital preservation strategies, e.g. migration or emulation; An introduction to the concepts and terminology used in the influential ISO Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS); Brief information on the Cedars outline preservation metadata specification and the outcomes of some related metadata initiatives; Some notes on the cost implications of preservation metadata and how these might be reduced.
Conclusions
RQ "In June 2000, a group of archivists, computer scientists and metadata experts met in the Netherlands to discuss metadata developments related to recordkeeping and the long-term preservation of archives. One of the key conclusions made at this working meeting was that the recordkeeping metadata communities should attempt to co-operate more with other metatdata initiatives. The meeting also suggested research into the contexts of creation and use, e.g. identifying factors that might encourage or discourage creators form meeting recordkeeping metadata requirements. This kind of research would also be useful for wider preservation metadata developments. One outcome of this meeting was the setting up of an Archiving Metadata Forum (AMF) to form the focus of future developments." ... "Future work on preservation metadata will need to focus on several key issues. Firstly, there is an urgent need for more practical experience of undertaking digital preservation strategies. Until now, many preservation metadata initiatives have largely been based on theoretical considerations or high-level models like the OAIS. This is not in itself a bad thing, but it is now time to begin to build metadata into the design of working systems that can test the viability of digital preservation strategies in a variety of contexts. This process has already begun in initiatives like the Victorian Electronic Records Stategy and the San Diego Supercomputer Center's 'self-validating knowledge-based archives'. A second need is for increased co-operation between the many metadata initiatives that have an interest in digital preservation. This may include the comparison and harmonisation of various metadata specifications, where this is possible. The OCLC/LG working group is an example of how this has been taken forward whitin a particular domain. There is a need for additional co-operation with recordkeeping metadata specialists, computing scientists and others in the metadata research community. Thirdly, there is a need for more detailed research into how metadata will interact with different formats, preservation strategies and communities of users. This may include some analysis of what metadata could be automatically extracted as part of the ingest process, an investigation of the role of content creators in metadata provision, and the production of user requirements." ... "Also, thought should be given to the development of metadata standards that will permit the easy exchange of preservation metadata (and information packages) between repositories." ... "As well as ensuring that digital repositories are able to facilitate the automatic capture of metadata, some thought should also be given to how best digital repositories could deal with any metadata that might already exist."
SOW
DC "Funded by JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee of the UK higher education funding councils), as part of its Electronic Libraries (eLib) Programme, Cedars was the only project in the programme to focus on digital preservation." ... "In the digitial library domain, the development of a recommendation on preservation metadata is being co-ordinated by a working group supported by OCLC and the RLG. The membership of the working group is international, and inlcudes key individuals who were involved in the development of the Cedars, NEDLIB and NLA metadata specifications."
Type
Web Page
Title
Metadata for preservation : CEDARS project document AIW01
This report is a review of metadata formats and initiatives in the specific area of digital preservation. It supplements the DESIRE Review of metadata (Dempsey et al. 1997). It is based on a literature review and information picked-up at a number of workshops and meetings and is an attempt to briefly describe the state of the art in the area of metadata for digital preservation.
Critical Arguements
CA "The projects, initiatives and formats reviewed in this report show that much work remains to be done. . . . The adoption of persistent and unique identifiers is vital, both in the CEDARS project and outside. Many of these initiatives mention "wrappers", "containers" and "frameworks". Some thought should be given to how metadata should be integrated with data content in CEDARS. Authenticity (or intellectual preservation) is going to be important. It will be interesting to investigate whether some archivists' concerns with custody or "distributed custody" will have relevance to CEDARS."
Conclusions
RQ Which standards and initiatives described in this document have proved viable preservation metadata models?
SOW
DC OAIS emerged out of an initiative spearheaded by NASA's Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems. It has been shaped and promoted by the RLG and OCLC. Several international projects have played key roles in shaping the OAIS model and adapting it for use in libraries, archives and research repositories. OAIS-modeled repositories include the CEDARS Project, Harvard's Digital Repository, Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB), the Library of Congress' Archival Information Package for audiovisual materials, MIT's D-Space, OCLC's Digital Archive and TERM: the Texas Email Repository Model.
This paper discusses how metadata standards can help organizations comply with the ISO 9000 standards for quality systems. It provides a brief overview of metadata, ISO 9000 and related records management standards. It then analyses in some depth the ISO 9000 requirements for quality records, and outlines the problems that some organizations have in complying with them. It also describes the metadata specifications developed by the University of Pittsburgh Electronic Recordkeeping project and the SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata project in Australia and discusses the role of metadata in meeting ISO 9000 requirements for the creation and preservation of reliable, authentic and accessible records.
Publisher
Records Continuum Research Group
Critical Arguements
CA "During the last few years a number of research projects have studied the types of metadata needed to create, manage and make accessible quality records, i.e. reliable, authentic and useable records. This paper will briefly discuss the purposes of recordkeeping metadata, with reference to emerging records management standards, and the models presented by two projects, one in the United States and one in Australia. It will also briefly review the ISO 9000 requirements for records and illustrate how metadata can help an organization meet these requirements."
Conclusions
RQ "Quality records provide many advantages for organizations and can help companies meet the ISO 9000 certification. However, systems must be designed to create the appropriate metadata to ensure they comply with recordkeeping requirements, particularly those identified by records management standards like AS 4390 and the proposed international standard, which provide benchmarks for recordkeeping best practice. The Pittsburgh metadata model and the SPIRT framework provide organizations with standardized sets of metadata that would ensure the creation, preservation and accessibility of reliable, authentic and meaningful records for as long as they are of use. In deciding what metadata to capture, organisations should consider the cost of meeting the requirements of the ISO 9000 guidelines and any related records management best practice standards, and the possible risk of not meeting these requirements."
Type
Web Page
Title
Metadata Reference Guide: ONIX ONline Information eXchange
CA According to Editeur, the group responsible for the maintenance of the ONIX standard, ONIX is the international standard for representing book, serial, and video product information in electronic form.
Type
Web Page
Title
Creating and Documenting Text: A Guide to Good Practice
CA "The aim of this Guide is to take users through the basic steps involved in creating and documenting an electronic text or similar digital resource. ... This Guide assumes that the creators of electronic texts have a number of common concerns. For example, that they wish their efforts to remain viable and usable in the long-term, and not to be unduly constrained by the limitations of current hardware and software. Similarly, that they wish others to be able to reuse their work, for the purposes of secondary analysis, extension, or adaptation. They also want the tools, techniques, and standards that they adopt to enable them to capture those aspects of any non-electronic sources which they consider to be significant -- whilst at the same time being practical and cost-effective to implement."
Conclusions
RQ "While a single metadata scheme, adopted and implemented wholescale would be the ideal, it is probable that a proliferation of metadata schemes will emerge and be used by different communities. This makes the current work centred on integrated services and interoperability all the more important. ... The Warwick Framework (http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/resources/wf.html) for example suggests the concept of a container architecture, which can support the coexistence of several independently developed and maintained metadata packages which may serve other functions (rights management, administrative metadata, etc.). Rather than attempt to provide a metadata scheme for all web resources, the Warwick Framework uses the Dublin Core as a starting point, but allows individual communities to extend this to fit their own subject-specific requirements. This movement towards a more decentralised, modular and community-based solution, where the 'communities of expertise' themselves create the metadata they need has much to offer. In the UK, various funded organisations such as the AHDS (http://ahds.ac.uk/), and projects like ROADS (http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/roads/) and DESIRE (http://www.desire.org/) are all involved in assisting the development of subject-based information gateways that provide metadata-based services tailored to the needs of particular user communities."
This document is a revision and expansion of "Metadata Made Simpler: A guide for libraries," published by NISO Press in 2001.
Publisher
NISO Press
Critical Arguements
CA An overview of what metadata is and does, aimed at librarians and other information professionals. Describes various metadata schemas. Concludes with a bibliography and glossary.
Joined-up government needs joined-up information systems. The e-Government Metadata Standard (e-GMS) lays down the elements, refinements and encoding schemes to be used by government officers when creating metadata for their information resources or designing search interfaces for information systems. The e-GMS is needed to ensure maximum consistency of metadata across public sector organisations.
Publisher
Office of the e-Envoy, Cabinet Office, UK.
Critical Arguements
CA "The e-GMS is concerned with the particular facets of metadata intended to support resource discovery and records management. The Standard covers the core set of ÔÇÿelementsÔÇÖ that contain data needed for the effective retrieval and management of official information. Each element contains information relating to a particular aspect of the information resource, e.g. 'title' or 'creator'. Further details on the terminology being used in this standard can be found in Dublin Core and Part Two of the e-GIF."
Conclusions
RQ "The e-GMS will need to evolve, to ensure it remains comprehensive and consistent with changes in international standards, and to cater for changes in use and technology. Some of the elements listed here are already marked for further development, needing additional refinements or encoding schemes. To limit disruption and cost to users, all effort will be made to future-proof the e-GMS. In particular we will endeavour: not to remove any elements or refinements; not to rename any elements or refinements; not to add new elements that could contain values contained in the existing elements."
SOW
DC The E-GMS is promulgated by the British government as part of its e-government initiative. It is the technical cornerstone of the e-government policy for joining up the public sector electronically and providing modern, improved public services.
Type
Web Page
Title
Requirements for Electronic Records Management Systems: (2) Metadata Standard
Requirements for Electronic Records Management Systems includes: (1) "Functional Requirements" (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/electronicrecords/reqs2002/pdf/requirementsfinal.pdf); (2) "Metadata Standard" (the subject of this record); (3) Reference Document (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/electronicrecords/reqs2002/pdf/referencefinal.pdf); and (4) "Implementation Guidance: Configuration and Metadata Issues" (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/electronicrecords/reqs2002/pdf/implementation.pdf)
Publisher
Public Records Office, [British] National Archives
Critical Arguements
CA Sets out the implications for records management metadata in compliant systems. It has been agreed with the Office of the e-Envoy that this document will form the basis for an XML schema to support the exchange of records metadata and promote interoperability between ERMS and other systems
SOW
DC The National Archives updated the functional requirements for electronic records management systems (ERMS) in collaboration with the central government records management community during 2002. The revision takes account of developments in cross-government and international standards since 1999.
Type
Web Page
Title
Descriptive Metadata Guidelines for RLG Cultural Materials
To ensure that the digital collections submitted to RLG Cultural Materials can be discovered and understood, RLG has compiled these Descriptive Metadata Guidelines for contributors. While these guidelines reflect the needs of one particular service, they also represent a case study in information sharing across community and national boundaries. RLG Cultural Materials engages a wide range of contributors with different local practices and institutional priorities. Since it is impossible to find -- and impractical to impose -- one universally applicable standard as a submission format, RLG encourages contributors to follow the suite of standards applicable to their particular community (p.1).
Critical Arguements
CA "These guidelines . . . do not set a new standard for metadata submission, but rather support a baseline that can be met by any number of strategies, enabling participating institutions to leverage their local descriptions. These guidelines also highlight the types of metadata that enhance functionality for RLG Cultural Materials. After a contributor submits a collection, RLG maps that description into the RLG Cultural Materials database using the RLG Cultural Materials data model. This ensures that metadata from the various participant communities is integrated for efficient searching and retrieval" (p.1).
Conclusions
RQ Not applicable.
SOW
DC RLG comprises more than 150 research and cultural memory institutions, and RLG Cultural Materials elicits contributions from countless museums, archives, and libraries from around the world that, although they might retain local descriptive standards and metadata schemas, must conform to the baseline standards prescribed in this document in order to integrate into RLG Cultural Materials. Appendix A represents and evaluates the most common metadata standards with which RLG Cultural Materians is able to work.
