Workbook on Digital Private Papers > Administrative and preservation metadata > Preservation metadata
Preservation metadata
Activities the preservation metadata application profile must support
A profile for personal digital archives should enable the repository to undertake, and ultimately automate, manifold activities required to preserve authentic versions of the Intellectual Entities which compose a personal digital archive. It should allow the repository to:
- Identify, locate, understand and render Intellectual Entities over time.
- Record an audit trail of actions performed on Representations of Intellectual Entities for authenticity purposes, including details of which agents undertook events and when.
- Understand the relationships between different Representations of the same Intellectual Entity (e.g. where migration has created a new Representation of an Intellectual Entity, its relationship with the original Representation must be recorded).
- Record the effects of preservation actions on Representations of Intellectual Entities.
- Monitor the robustness of individual Files which compose Representations of the Intellectual Entities.
- Identify Files, and therefore Representations of Intellectual Entities, 'at risk' from obsolescence.
- Perform batch preservation actions on files conforming to a type, which result in new Representations of the Intellectual Entity.
- Profile collections in the repository in order to prioritise the development of preservation strategies appropriate to the file-types present in it.
- Make explicit the tacit knowledge about computing environments on which Representations of Intellectual Entities depend before it becomes extinct.
- Demonstrate that preservation actions undertaken by the repository have been carried out lawfully.
- Ensure there is sufficient information from which to construct the metadata that will be required to support access and use of the Intellectual Entities by future researchers.
- Ensure that the Representations of Intellectual Entities within an archive (which are also records of transactions) retain their evidentiary value.
- Understand the structural relationships between different Intellectual Entities which form part of the same archive.
- Ensure that Intellectual Entities are self-documenting over time.
- Reassemble complex Representations of Intellectual Entities, such as websites, from their constituent digital Files.
Some of the metadata required for these purposes is also useful for other activities, such as informing local preservation repository developments and creating descriptive metadata, and may be re-purposed to fulfill these other needs. The application profile should enable the repository to record information necessary to undertake the activities outlined above on any kind of digital file, and may require sub-profiles to cater for the idiosyncrasies of certain categories of file.
