Digital Preservation Metadata for Practitioners

Transcription

1 Digital Preservation Metadata for Practitioners

2 Angela Dappert Rebecca Squire Guenther Sébastien Peyrard Editors Digital Preservation Metadata for Practitioners Implementing PREMIS 123

3 Editors Angela Dappert The British Library London UK Rebecca Squire Guenther Consultant New York, NY USA Sébastien Peyrard Bibliothèque nationale de France Site François-Mitterrand Paris France ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Library of Congress Control Number: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

4 Preface Digital Preservation Metadata for Practitioners: Implementing PREMIS is intended for anyone who needs to preserve digital assets in any form over a long period of time. It considers the steps involved in determining what information one needs to keep, together with one s digital assets, so that they can be understood and used in the long term. The information that ensures the long-term usability of digital objects to keep them accessible in some form in the future is referred to as digital preservation metadata. This is particularly important for repositories, places where information objects are stored and managed for a long time. Simply storing digital objects on a data carrier is not enough to keep them usable. They need to be managed in a repository so that they are protected from accidental or intentional damage and so that a full computing environment can be created in which they can be accessed and understood when they are needed. In the early 2000s it became clear that a shared community metadata standard was needed to ensure long-term preservation of our ever-increasing digital resources. Experts from key memory institutions and repository developers joined together to define it, resulting in The PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata, which has become a de facto standard that defines core metadata needed by most preservation repositories. There is a large variety of information object content types, such as documents, images, audiovisual material, web pages, spreadsheets, and business management files in proprietary formats. One needs additional application or content-type specific metadata that go beyond this core metadata, to achieve long-term usability of their specific features. Format-specific metadata are defined in other standards that can be combined with the PREMIS core preservation metadata standard. The use of standards is important as it supports the development of a community of best practice; it helps practitioners learn from the insights of others, so that they do not inadvertently overlook key metadata in their own practice; it allows for development of tools to make metadata creation and management easier; and it enables organizations to more easily exchange information with each other. v

5 vi Preface Because standards are broadly applicable and flexible, they need to be customized to fit the context of an individual organizational situation. The PREMIS Data Dictionary provides the basic building blocks for creating one s preservation metadata, intending to be applicable to diverse environments and content types. It provides a data model consisting of basic entities (objects, agents, events, and rights) and basic properties (called semantic units ) that describe them. The practitioner then needs to determine how this is applied to their specific context, i.e., which specific entities, relationships, and vocabulary are needed to support their repository functionality. The dictionary provides considerable freedom in how this is done. This book helps readers understand which options need to be considered in specifying the digital preservation metadata that is needed to customize to their individual content types, technical infrastructure, and organizational needs. It provides practical guidance examples and raises important considerations. It does not provide a full-fledged implementation solution that can, by definition, only be specific to a given preservation context. As such, the book forms the bridge between the formal specifications provided in a standard, such as the PREMIS Data Dictionary, and a specific implementation. The book gives an introduction to fundamental issues related to digital preservation metadata and then proceeds to develop an in-depth understanding of issues related to its practical use and implementation. It should be of use to beginners and current practitioners. It is equally targeted at digital preservation repository managers and metadata analysts who are responsible for digital preservation metadata, as it is at students in Library, Information and Archival Science degree programs or related fields. It can be used at the conception stage of a digital preservation system or for self-audit of an existing system. The book explores the following topics: Chapter 1 gives an end-to-end overview of the steps involved in determining what information one needs to keep, together with one s digital assets, so that they can be understood and used in the long term. Chapter 2 explains how risk and requirements analysis methodologies can be used as the basis for determining the required metadata. Standards give guidance for implementers, but they need to be tailored to specific needs so that the metadata supports requirements. The chapter proposes important questions that help to break down the task of determining these requirements into more manageable subtasks. Chapter 3 reviews the development of PREMIS (now in version 3.0), explains the goals and principles behind the PREMIS Data Dictionary, reviews some of its features, and puts it in the context of the OAIS model. Chapters 4 through 12 explain the methodology for designing an application profile and illustrate implementation choices that have been made by leading institutions from around the world for specific entities and content types. These specific types include moving images, web archives, e-books, removable disk images, archival collections, and computing environments; specific entities include events, agents, and rights.

6 Preface vii Chapter 13 explains the technical options for serializing data conformant to the PREMIS Data Dictionary. Serialization is the process of mapping a data model into formatted bits; serialization is generally required to facilitate transmission, storage, or computation on the data. Common choices which are explored include XML, RDF, and relational database implementations. Chapter 14 discusses how to make different metadata frameworks work together in an institutional ecosystem. In most contexts, PREMIS will not be the only metadata standard implemented in an institution. Different standards aim at covering complementary functionality and can be combined in a modular fashion. Chapters 15 through 17 provide a snapshot of tools and systems that can be used to produce, consume, or manage PREMIS metadata. The tools included in the chapters are diverse in focus and functionality; some were designed for PREMIS metadata specifically, while others are more general with broader usage. There are also studies of PREMIS implementations in open-source digital preservation systems and in a local repository. Chapter 18 reviews the PREMIS Conformance Statement, which defines what can be considered a well-executed implementation. It explores the value of conformance, how best to achieve it, and how conformance could be linked to assertions of best practice and certification. London, UK New York, NY, USA Paris, France Angela Dappert Rebecca Squire Guenther Sébastien Peyrard

7 Acknowledgements The editors would like to thank Ralf Gerstner for suggesting that the book should be written, Clément Oury for supporting the idea, the PREMIS Editorial Committee for advice and contributions, and Adam Farquhar for assisting with reviewing. ix

8 Contents 1 An Introduction to Implementing Digital Preservation Metadata... 1 Angela Dappert, Sébastien Peyrard and Rebecca Squire Guenther 2 How to Develop a Digital Preservation Metadata Profile: Risk and Requirements Analysis Sébastien Peyrard, Angela Dappert and Rebecca Squire Guenther 3 An Introduction to the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Digital Preservation Metadata Rebecca Squire Guenther, Angela Dappert and Sébastien Peyrard 4 How to Develop a Digital Preservation Metadata Profile: Data Modeling Angela Dappert 5 Digital Preservation Metadata Practice for Audio-Visual Materials Kara Van Malssen 6 Digital Preservation Metadata Practice for Web Archives Clément Oury, Karl-Rainer Blumenthal and Sébastien Peyrard 7 Digital Preservation Metadata Practice for E-Journals and E-Books Amy Kirchhoff and Sheila M. Morrissey 8 Digital Preservation Metadata Practice for Disk Image Access Alexandra Chassanoff, Kam Woods and Christopher A. Lee 9 Digital Preservation Metadata Practice for Archives Karin Bredenberg xi

9 xii Contents 10 Digital Preservation Metadata Practice for Computing Environments Angela Dappert and Adam Farquhar 11 Implementing Event and Agent Metadata for Digital Preservation Euan Cochrane 12 Implementing Rights Metadata for Digital Preservation Evelyn McLellan 13 Serialization of PREMIS Thomas Habing 14 Digital Preservation Metadata in a Metadata Ecosystem Eld Zierau and Sébastien Peyrard 15 Tools for Working with PREMIS Carol Chou, Andrea Goethals and Julie Seifert 16 PREMIS in Open-Source Software: Islandora and Archivematica Mark Jordan and Evelyn McLellan 17 Case Study: Implementing an Open-Source and In-House Developed PREMIS Events and Agents System Mark Edward Phillips and Daniel Gelaw Alemneh 18 Conformance with PREMIS Peter McKinney Glossary Index of General Terms Index for PREMIS Semantic Units

10 Contributors Daniel Gelaw Alemneh University of North Texas, UNT Libraries, Denton, TX, USA Karl-Rainer Blumenthal New York Art Resources Consortium, New York, NY, USA Karin Bredenberg Riksarkivet, Avdelningen För Offentlig Informationshantering/ Public Information Management, Stockholm, Sweden Alexandra Chassanoff University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA Carol Chou Florida Virtual Campus, Gainesville, FL, USA Euan Cochrane Yale University Library, New Haven, CT, USA Angela Dappert The British Library, London, UK Adam Farquhar The British Library, London, UK Andrea Goethals Harvard Library, Cambridge, MA, USA Rebecca Squire Guenther Consultant (Formerly Library of Congress), New York, NY, USA Thomas Habing Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA Mark Jordan W.A.C. Bennett Library, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada Amy Kirchhoff ITHAKA, Princeton, NJ, USA Christopher A. Lee University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA Peter McKinney National Library of New Zealand/Te Puna Mātauranga O Aotearoa, Wellington, New Zealand Evelyn McLellan Artefactual Systems Inc., New Westminster, BC, Canada xiii

11 xiv Contributors Sheila M. Morrissey ITHAKA, Princeton, NJ, USA Clément Oury International ISSN Centre, Paris, France Sébastien Peyrard Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, France Mark Edward Phillips University of North Texas, UNT Libraries, Denton, TX, USA Julie Seifert Harvard Library, Cambridge, MA, USA Kara Van Malssen AVPreserve, Brooklyn, NY, USA Kam Woods University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA Eld Zierau The Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen K, Denmark