Applying preservation metadata to repositories

For JISC KeepIt course on Digital Preservation Tools for Repository ManagersModule 3, Primer on preservation workflow, formats and characterisation

Westminster-Kingsway College, London, 2 March 2010

This section by Steve Hitchcock KeepIt project

Based on an earlier workshop presented for the Repositories Support Project (RSP), London, January 2008

Applying preservation metadata to repositories

Overview of session

Why preservation metadata?

Background on PREMIS

Group work: preservation metadata exercise

Teams report back; discussion of findings

Conclusions: Are IRs preservation repositories?

How much preservation Is your repository doing?

Demonstrate that repositories do more preservation-related work than you might think

Show how preservation support is responding to what repositories do

Not a tutorial on PREMIS

Aims of the session

Metadata designed for managing digital content over a long period of time is commonly referred to as preservation metadata, and typically informs, describes and records a range of activities concerned with preserving specific digital objects.

Preservation metadata

Currently, the authoritative reference on preservation metadata

Emphasis: implementation

Produced a Data Dictionary (v2.0 April 2008)http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/

Describes and defines over 100 semantic units, i.e. items of metadata

Applicable to preservation repositories. Are IRs preservation repositories?

PREMIS: Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies

PREMIS dictionary documents four types of entity:

Objects: things the repository stores

Events: things that happen to the objects

Agents: people, or organisations or software that act on objects

Rights: expression of rights applying to objects

PREMIS Data Dictionary: entities

PREMIS Data Dictionary: example entry

This table taken from V1.0 (May 2005)

Repository software

Submitting author

Repository administrators

Repository policy

Preservation tools, e.g. format ID Preservation services

PREMIS data: where might it come from?

You will be given a list of selected entries from the PREMIS Data Dictionary

The aim is to:

identify those entries that can serve your repositories, and

indicate where that information (metadata) is, or could be, generated

Good luck with your team task!

Team task

This was not a test, not a survey, not a tutorial

It was about making preservation real for your repository

We often think of ‘preservation’ in an abstract sense, but repositories are already taking actions that affect preservation and contribute towards preservation results

You are probably doing more preservation than you think

Did we achieve the aims of the session?

It is likely that future revisions of PREMIS will accommodate the emerging Planets model of significant properties.

Recording explicitly how a preservation action creates a new representation from an old one. This involves recording the relationship between:

the representations the preservation action event the agent used to perform the preservation action

and details, such as

configuration parameters significant characteristics which guided the choice of preservation action measured differences between the source and the target (outcome information), etc.

Updating PREMIS