| dc.description.abstract | In the process of digital preservation metadata management for long-term accessibility of
digital objects has been an important discussion point internationally. However, there is a gap
in the implementation of preservation metadata standards from theory to practice. Hitherto
little research has been conducted to show the application of preservation metadata and
therefore new case studies on both implementation and use of metadata standards in
preservation strategies is needed. The aim of this thesis is to study the extent of implementing
standard preservation metadata in the preservation practice at memory institutions.
This study adopts a qualitative method based upon a pragmatic approach and uses the case
study strategy. Metadata experts/specialists in three memory institutions (National Library of
Estonia, National Archives of Estonia and National Library of Wales) were interviewed using
semi-structured interviews, accompanied by document analysis.
Results of the study show that these memory institutions are recording a wide range of
metadata in all categories: descriptive, structural as well as administrative metadata (including
the rights, provenance, and technical metadata). They use metadata elements from a variety of
metadata standards/schema to suit their practical purposes. However, the level of exploitation
of preservation metadata standards differs in scale, data management practices as well as
heterogeneity of metadata recorded. Metadata is recorded about different digital objects like
books, WebPages, photographs, audio, video, and their files and bitstreams. The level of
implementation of metadata for each object type varies between institutions. The application
of the PREMIS metadata standard entities varies from institution to institution as it ranges
from reviewing/analyzing stage to practical implementation. Significant differences have also
been seen between national libraries and archives in mission, process of ingest, influence of
their traditional cataloguing practices and types of standards used for the development of their
metadata specification. In managing the metadata on the digital preservation processes
different problems and challenges have been faced and investigated by these memory
institutions and further research should be carried out to study other aspects of metadata
implementation. | en_US |
