How to Develop a Digital Preservation Metadata Profile: Data Modeling

Abstract

Digital preservation metadata profiles vary because of different content types held in the repository, different functions performed on them, different organizational mandates and processes, different policies, different technical platforms, and other reasons. Because of this, one important step in their development is the definition of a logical data model. The logical data model declares the key context-specific entities for which metadata needs to be created, the relationships between them, and the specific metadata properties that should be captured for them. This chapter describes the principles of how to create a logical data model. Chapters 5 through 12 go on to present a number of case studies that illustrate how specific data model issues have been decided for different entity types, for different content types, such as web archives, audiovisual or e-book materials, and for different organization types.