Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 10
In Addition to Understanding It - What Is It?:
Preservation Description Information
10.1 Introduction
Preservation Description Information, as defined by OAIS as being made up of sev-
eral types of Information (Fig.
10.1
): Fixity, Reference, Context Provenance and
Access Rights, will be detailed below. Note that Access Rights Information was not
in the original version of OAIS but was added in the first update.
Many aspects are very likely to be discipline independent, for example Fixity,
Reference and some aspects of Provenance. It is also likely that at least some aspects
of Provenance will be discipline dependent, as will be Context information.
Preservation
Description
Information
Reference
Information
Provenance
Information
Context
Information
Fixity
Information
Access Rights
Information
Fig. 10.1
Types of preservation description information
10.2 Fixity Information
OAIS defines Fixity Information as the:
information which documents the authentication mechanisms and provides
authentication keys to ensure that the Content Information object has not been
