Rebecca S. Guenther

Practical Preservation: The PREMIS Experience

In 2003 the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) and Research Libraries Group (RLG) established an international working group to develop a common, implementable core set of metadata elements for digital preservation. Most published specifications for preservation-related metadata are either implementation specific or broadly theoretical. PREMIS (Preservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies) was charged to define a set of semantic units that are implementation independent, practically oriented, and likely to be needed by most preservation repositories. The semantic units will be represented in a data dictionary and in a METS-compatible XML schema. In the course of this work, the group also developed a glossary of terms and concepts, a data model, and a typology of relationships. Existing preservation repositories were surveyed about their architectural models and metadata practices, and some attempt was made to identify best practices. This article outlines the history and methods of the PREMIS Working Group and describes its deliverables. It explains major assumptions and decisions made by the group and examines some of the more difficult issues encountered.

Using the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) for resource description: guidelines and applications

This paper describes the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS), its accompanying documentation and some of its applications. It reviews the MODS user guidelines provided by the Library of Congress and how they enable a user of the schema to consistently apply MODS as a metadata scheme. Because the schema itself could not fully document appropriate usage, the guidelines provide element definitions, history, relationships with other elements, usage conventions, and examples. Short descriptions of some MODS applications are given and a more detailed discussion of its use in the Library of Congress’s Minerva project for Web archiving is given.

Metadata to support long-term preservation of digital assets: PREMIS and its use with METS

This paper explores the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata and its use as a standard for providing metadata in support of preservation of digital assets. The paper provides an introduction to the PREMIS Data Dictionary in terms of its principles, development and implementation. In addition it introduces the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) as a packaging format that may be used to associate metadata (particularly for preservation) with content files. How PREMIS integrates with METS and the development of best practice guidelines to facilitate use of these standards together is also discussed. The paper considers future directions for PREMIS.

PREMIS OWL

In this article, we present PREMIS OWL. This is a semantic formalisation of the PREMIS 2.2 data dictionary of the Library of Congress. PREMIS 2.2 are metadata implementation guidelines for digitally archiving information for the long term. Nowadays, the need for digital preservation is growing. A lot of the digital information produced merely a decade ago is in danger of getting lost as technologies are changing and getting obsolete. This also threatens a lot of information from heritage institutions. PREMIS OWL is a semantic long-term preservation schema. Preservation metadata are actually a mixture of provenance information, technical information on the digital objects to be preserved and rights information. PREMIS OWL is an OWL schema that can be used as data model supporting digital archives. It can be used for dissemination of the preservation metadata as Linked Open Data on the Web and, at the same time, for supporting semantic web technologies in the preservation processes. The model incorporates 24 preservation vocabularies, published by the LOC as SKOS vocabularies. Via these vocabularies, PREMIS descriptions from different institutions become highly interoperable. The schema is approved and now managed by the Library of Congress. The PREMIS OWL schema is published at http://www.loc.gov/premis/rdf/v1.

An Introduction to Implementing Digital Preservation Metadata

This chapter 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. In other words, what digital preservation metadata is required, and how does one decide this? This includes risk and functional analysis to define the context-specific metadata requirements; applying best-practice frameworks, such as OAIS, PREMIS, or SPOT to choose and structure the required metadata; deriving a data model for a variety of content types, such as web archives, audio-visual materials, or e-books; determining the associated events, agent, rights, and computing environment information; choosing the best serialization method; combining multiple metadata standards; taking advantage of existing tools; and applying conformance considerations. The narrative links to the chapters in the book Digital Preservation Metadata for Practitioners-Implementing PREMIS.

How to Develop a Digital Preservation Metadata Profile: Risk and Requirements Analysis

There is no off-the-shelf solution when implementing preservation metadata. Standards such as the OAIS information model are a general guidance that lists the main information families that need to be expressed; closer to implementation, the PREMIS Data Dictionary provides core information elements that can accommodate a wide range of contexts, providing general implementation guidance. As such, these guidelines need to be tailored to specific needs so that the implemented preservation metadata supports all relevant requirements, making the most appropriate decisions in a constrained context. This chapter proposes important questions that help to break down the task into more manageable subtasks. Risk-oriented frameworks, such as the SPOT model, are efficient tools to start a requirement analysis for digital preservation metadata.

An Introduction to the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Digital Preservation Metadata

The PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata provides a comprehensive and widely implemented specification that is revised based on concrete experience and changing technological environments. In addition, it gives the preservation community a common data model for organizing and thinking about the information you need to preserve digital objects. It has become the de facto standard for preservation metadata and is built into many preservation repository systems, both open-source and commercial, such that essential preservation activities can be accomplished. This chapter reviews the development of PREMIS, now in version 3.0, its supporting maintenance activity, its goals, principles and scope, its relationship to OAIS, and it introduces the features of the Data Dictionary. As a shared community standard the PREMIS Data Dictionary is flexible, extensible, and provides for interoperability among repositories of digital objects, systems that support the preservation process, and data that are exchanged and reused.