[Esip-preserve] context, metadata, and provenance

[James Frew]

On 2011-04-05 14:10, Bruce Barkstrom wrote:
> Have you got this material stated in the language of the OAIS RM?

OAIS defines Provenance as "the history of the Content Information". 
"History" is somewhat broader than "derivation"---it also specifically 
includes chain-of-custody, which is a traditional archival concern in 
the physical world (e.g. "That painting is a Rembrandt because I got it 
from A who got from B who ... got it from Rembrandt").

[Aside: why chain of custody matters for a digital object with fixity 
information is left as an exercise for the reader...]

OAIS notes that "Provenance can be viewed as a special type of context 
information."

OAIS defines Context as "the relationships of the Content Information to 
its environment." I contend that this is functionally equivalent to my 
definition, since it excludes nothing that I'd call metadata.

OAIS defines Reference and Fixity information as somehow distinct from 
(as opposed to included in) Context, but I don't find this useful. 
(Don't get me wrong: the *concepts* of Reference and Fixity are *very* 
useful---it's just trying to distinguish them from Context that's silly. 
Check out OAIS Table 4.1 and try to reverse-engineer the distinctions 
from the examples provided.)

Anyway, aside from slightly differing scopes for Provenance (broader) 
and Context (narrower), OAIS seems to agree with what I've been saying 
here (and to anyone who'll listen for long enough to bore anyone who'll 
listen.)

/Frew