Preservation Metadata and its Accordance with the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model

This paper aimed to study and identify the preservation metadata in three research projects, namely CEDARS, the National Library of Australia, and NEDLIB. It also evaluates the accordance of these metadata with the elements of the OAIS information model.Methodology/Approach: This research was carried out using library and the Delphi method. The preservation metadata in three research projects were collected through surveys and interviews with experts and managers of the research projects. These elements were then compared with each other and their relationship with the components and various information of the OAIS model were assessed. The preservation metadata elements approaches in the projects studied used OAIS concepts and terminology as the basic framework for their metadata; however, the National Library of Australia follows the OAIS implicitly. In all three projects, the focus is on the provenance and the representation Information components of the OAIS information model; they pay much less attention to the other information types of the OAIS information model, such as descriptive information or packaging and descriptive information of preservation (content, fixation, and reference information, etc.). The existence of the metadata for high-level preservation, putting aside digital preservation features, can be a starting point for new measures for digital preservation and can improve the coming together of preservation metadata and the OAIS standard in archival repositories. The findings of this research may be a starting point for a new effort for better identification of common functions and approaches for employing the preservation metadata in support of the digital preservation process. Finally, it becomes necessary for everyone to use a single metadata standard such as PREMIS but to localize it as needed in each country.