A Daunting PREMIS: Implementing Preservation Metadata within the METS Framework

Presented at 2006 International Conference on Digital Archive Technologies (ICDAT2006)

Jerome P. McDonough
Graduate School of Library & Information Science, UIUC

19-20 October 2006

NOTES: Above represents standards directly referenced by the Digital Cinema System specification.
It does not include a variety of other referenced materials, including RFCs for URNs, SHA1, & RSA,
CIE Colorimetry publication, etc.

Almost all of these standards reference other standards necessary to their interpretation *IN SOME INSTANCES*. We cannot know in advance which parts of this network of standards and documentation will be needed to Interpret a particular electronic document.

“As a practical matter, the OAIS needs to have enough Representation Information associated with the bits of the Content Data Object in the Content Information that it feels confident that the members of the Designated Community can enter the Representation Network with enough knowledge to begin accurately interpreting the Representation Information. This is a significant risk area for an OAIS, particularly for those with an expert Designated Community, because jargon and apparently widely understood terms may be short-lived. In such cases extra care needs to be exercised to ensure that the natural evolution of the Designated Community Knowledge Base does not effectively cause information loss from the Content Information. “ -- OAIS Reference Model

Various efforts trying to build representation information registries/repositories, including DCC, GDFR, PRONOM, but the appropriate extent of a representation network to maintain, the appropriate mechanisms for preserving representation information (including administrative/organizational/legal/economic) are not at all clear.