METS For The Cultural Heritage Community: A Literature Review

METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) is an XML-based, data communication standard used for digital collections in cultural heritage institutions, including libraries, archives, and museums, and maintained by the Library of Congress. Recent articles have been written for those in the cultural heritage community who may find METS beneficial. Even so, the uses of METS are still being discovered in terms of best practices and interoperability. One of the main issues with METS is how it can be used with external schemas such as MODS, PREMIS, or Dublin Core. This paper includes a brief description of METS as a wrapper with external metadata schemas, followed by a literature review focusing on METS’ development since 2001, and its recent uses with external schemas

The Australian METS Profile – A Journey about Metadata

In any journey, there's a destination but half the 'fun' is getting there. This article chronicles our journey towards a common way of packaging and exchanging digital content in a future Australian data commons – a national corpus of research resources that can be shared and re-used. Whatever packaging format is used, it has to handle complex content models and work across multiple submission and dissemination scenarios. It has to do this in a way that maintains a history of the chain of custody of objects over time. At the start of our journey we chose METS extended by PREMIS to do this. We learnt a lot during the first two stages that we want to share with those travelling to a similar destination

Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010

This selective bibliography includes over 500 articles, books, and technical reports that are useful in understanding digital curation and preservation. The Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography includes published articles, books, and technical reports. All included works are in English. The bibliography does not cover conference papers, digital media works (such as MP3 files), editorials, e-mail messages, letters to the editor, presentation slides or transcripts, unpublished e-prints, or weblog postings. Most sources have been published between 2000 and the present; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 2000 are also included

Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010

This selective bibliography includes over 500 articles, books, and technical reports that are useful in understanding digital curation and preservation. The Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography includes published articles, books, and technical reports. All included works are in English. The bibliography does not cover conference papers, digital media works (such as MP3 files), editorials, e-mail messages, letters to the editor, presentation slides or transcripts, unpublished e-prints, or weblog postings. Most sources have been published between 2000 and the present; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 2000 are also included

An Examination of the Adoption of Preservation Metadata in Cultural Heritage Institutions: An Exploratory Study Using Diffusion of Innovations Theory

Digital preservation is a significant challenge for cultural heritage institutions and other repositories of digital information resources. Recognizing the critical role of metadata in any successful digital preservation strategy, the Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies (PREMIS) has been extremely influential on providing a "core" set of preservation metadata elements that support the digital preservation process. However, there is no evidence, in the form of previous research, as to what factors explain and predict the level of adoption of PREMIS. This research focused on identifying factors that affect the adoption of PREMIS in cultural heritage institutions. This study employed a web-based survey to collect data from 123 participants in 20 country as well as a semi-structured, follow-up telephone interview with a smaller sample of the survey respondents. Roger's diffusion of innovation theory was used as a theoretical framework. The main constructs considered for the study were relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability, and institution readiness. The study yielded both qualitative and quantitative data, and analysis showed that all six factors influence the adoption of PREMIS in varying degrees. Results of a regression analysis of adoption level on the six factors showed a statistically significant relationship. The R2 value for the model was .528, which means that 52.8% of the variance in PREMIS adoption was explained by a combination of the six factors. Considering the complexity of issue, this study has important implications for future research on preservation metadata and provides recommendations for researchers and stakeholders engaged in metadata standards development efforts

Requirements for Provenance on the Web

From where did this tweet originate? Was this quote from the New York Times modified? Daily, we rely on data from the Web but often it is difficult or impossible to determine where it came from or how it was produced. This lack of provenance is particularly evident when people and systems deal with Web information or with any environment where information comes from sources of varying quality. Provenance is not captured pervasively in information systems. There are major technical, social, and economic impediments that stand in the way of using provenance effectively. This paper synthesizes requirements for provenance on the Web for a number of dimensions focusing on three key aspects of provenance: the content of provenance, the management of provenance records, and the uses of provenance information. To illustrate these requirements, we use three synthesized scenarios that encompass provenance problems faced by Web users toda

Review of the State of the Art of the Digital Curation of Research Data

The digital curation of research data is best understood in the context of the data lifecycle, and specifically in the context of data repositories. Disciplinary data centres have established requirements for deposited data, and these requirements are increasingly reflected in requirements and guidance issued by research funding bodies. The digital curation community is active in helping researchers and institutions meet these requirements, producing not only further guidance but a suite of useful standards, technologies and tools. Collectively, these provide a wealth of resources on which the ERIM Project may draw

Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010

The preface states that the work includes citations of articles, books, and technical reports on digital curation, mostly published between 2000 and 2010

Current Status of PREMIS (PREservation metadata: implementation strategies) Implementation in American Archives and Historical Societies and the Factors Affecting This Adoption Rate

This paper presents the findings of fifty interviews seeking to discover the current status of PREMIS (PREservation metadata: implementation strategies) implementation in American archives and historical societies and the factors influencing these implementation decisions. The survey was designed to address two research questions: are American archives and historical societies implementing the PREMIS standard for preservation metadata and what barriers are being discussed by staff at these repositories prior to implementation decisions. Additionally, for those repositories THAT had not implemented PREMIS, the interviews sought to discover how else, if at all, staff was addressing the preservation metadata needs of the digital objects. Findings indicate that AMERICAN ARCHIVES HAVE OVERWHELMINGLY CHOSEN NOT TO IMPLEMENT PREMIS IN ANY WAY. STUDY participants identified many barriers to implementing PREMIS for the description of digital objects. They also suggested support that would help them become better able to implement PREMIS. The interviews shed light on the barriers causing the staff at American archives the most difficulty in their efforts to create any kind of metadata for their digital objects, using any schema or standard