Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The OAIS Producer-Archive Interface Methodology Abstract Standard
(PAIMAS [
22
]) seeks to identify, define and provide structure for the relationships
and interactions between an information Producer and an Archive. It defines the
methodology for the structure of actions that are required from the initial time of
contact between the Producer and the Archive until the objects of information are
received and validated by the Archive. These actions cover the first stage of the
Ingest Process. It is expected that a specific standard or “community standard”
would be created in order to take into account all of the specific features of the
community in question.
The Producer-Archive Interface Specification [
23
] aims to provide a standard
method to formally define the digital information objects to be transferred by an
information Producer to an Archive and for effectively transferring these objects in
the form of SIPs.
The general concepts and checklists provided by PAIMAS and PAIS provide
domain independent views of the processes that are needed in INGEST.
16.2.4 Access
ACCESS is the OAIS functional entity which provides
the services and functions that support Consumers in determining the exis-
tence, description, location and availability of information stored in the
OAIS, and allowing Consumers to request and receive information prod-
ucts. Access functions include communicating with Consumers to receive
requests, applying controls to limit access to specially protected information,
coordinating the execution of requests to successful completion, generat-
ing responses (Dissemination Information Packages, result sets, reports) and
delivering the responses to Consumers.
Looking at existing archives one sees a very great variety of ACCESS-type func-
tions. Indeed it is probably true to say that this, the user-facing part of an archive's
work, is the area in which the archive will seek to “brand” its services. Clearly the
access services have a certain degree of standardisation to allow interoperability,
examples of which include provision of Web pages, harvesting, and FTP services.
Nevertheless each archive will seek to provide a richer set of “branded” ordering,
searching and data provision services, and thus there are limits to the type of domain
independent services which might be offered to any archive.
Areas in which we might hope for some discipline independence are Access
Control and specialised Finding Aids based on PDI, and these are considered
next.
