Towards Frameworks for Standardising Recordkeeping Metadata

Sue McKemmish and Dagmar Parer

Sue McKemmish is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Management and Systems at Monash University. With her Monash colleagues she has developed innovative, integrated, multi-disciplinary approaches to records management, archival and information management education at postgraduate and undergraduate levels within the framework provided by records continuum and information continuum theory. She heads the SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Project which is developing a national framework for standardising recordkeeping metadata. Through the Centre for Information Management and Systems Practice, she and Monash colleague Barbara Reed currently manage a consultancy project to deliver a Records Management and Archives Skills Training Program to the National Archives of Australia.

Dagmar Parer has recently become Manager, Information Services at AIMA, a firm specialising in providing training and consultancies in corporate information management for libraries, museums, galleries, and records management and archives programs. Prior to joining AIMA in April this year, Dagmar worked for the National Archives of Australia, where she was responsible for setting descriptive standards and policy for the intellectual and practical control of records. She has been at the forefront of policy and procedure development to make government information more visible and accessible via the Internet. As Chair of the committee that set the metadata standard for use by all levels of government in Australia, she has in-depth knowledge of the issues that organisations need to embrace in their endeavours to meet the Government Online objective of delivering services via the Internet by 2001. Prior to joining Archives, Dagmar's work experience covered managing information service programs and libraries in the Commonwealth government and lecturing in information management and librarianship at the University of Canberra.

In electronic networked environments, IT professionals, librarians, information managers, cultural heritage players, recordkeeping professionals and other stakeholders are working together to develop coherent information architecture and metadata regimes to support document management, document discovery and document delivery. National and international efforts aim to build a global infrastructure of rules and standards in the virtual world equivalent to the regimes which manage recorded information in the paper world. The main drivers thus far have related to improving information resource identification, discovery and delivery to support information sharing and knowledge transmission via electronic networks populated by ever increasing numbers and varieties of document-like information objects (DIOs). New imperatives relate to supporting the transaction of business via distributed networks with the growth of electronic commerce. This article focuses on Australian research which addresses recordkeeping metadata regime requirements relating to the transaction of business in networked environments, as well as information sharing and knowledge transmission. Existing and proposed projects to develop and implement frameworks for standardising and managing recordkeeping metadata are outlined with reference to related international and national developments in the broader information community, including the development of common core sets of metadata and frameworks that support interoperability. Particular reference is made to the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS), which aims to develop a consensus on metadata regimes to help manage and make accessible Australian government document-like information objects in distributed networked environments. The conceptual basis of the Australian research in records continuum thinking is also explored i.

This is a refereed article.
This article was first published in Archives and Manucscripts, 26 (1) 1998.

Editor's Note: Editorial responsibility for this article was taken by Reviews Editor Adrian Cunningham.

Towards Frameworks for Standardising Recordkeeping Metadata

Sue McKemmish and Dagmar Parer

Introduction

In the virtual world of cyberspace, systems which parallel rules and protocols we are familiar with in the paper world are beginning to emerge. The need to devise metadata-based regimes to authenticate, protect, manage and make accessible DIOs in networked environments is being given urgent attention by international and national communities.

As well as the increasing opportunities for information accessibility and transmission of knowledge in distributed networked environments, there is also seemingly unlimited scope for the transaction of business of all kinds. In Australia, for example, the Commonwealth government has committed itself to deliver all appropriate services electronically via the Internet by 2001. A related initiative is the establishment of electronic commerce as a normal means for Commonwealth payments by the year 2000 iii. This will involve radically different ways of structuring service provision and business processes. New approaches to managing records will be needed to support business activities in cyberspace:

Minimising the risk in part involves building frameworks for attributing and managing metadata in these environments. A key component of such regimes is the use of standard metadata elements, embedded in, encapsulating or persistently linked to the records.

Managing records effectively in distributed networks also involves ensuring that recordkeeping metadata regimes are compatible with the metadata development framework initiatives in the broader information community, such as:

• The definition of generic metadata sets and cross sectoral frameworks for all document like information objects through initiatives such as the Dublin Core metadata set and Warwick framework
• The development of specific sectoral metadata sets which map to and extend the generic specifications to serve particular functionality, eg the Australian Government Locator Service metadata set which aims to promote government information discovery and delivery.

The Australian recordkeeping metadata research described in this paper aims to contribute to the establishment of the "reliable and robust mechanisms" referenced above. And, like other related initiatives, it seeks to advance understandings of concepts like authenticity, integrity, persistence, and uniqueness, bringing recordkeeping perspectives to the broader endeavours in this area.

The following sections of the paper will address a range of issues relating to this research:

• What is recordkeeping metadata? Why do we want to standardise it?
• What is the SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Project all about? How will another proposed project, "Metadata architecture to support persistence of essential evidence of business, social and cultural activity in distributed networked environments", extend the work of the SPIRT Project?
• What is the conceptual basis for the Australian recordkeeping metadata research?
• What is the relationship between the SPIRT Project and other national and international metadata-related developments, particularly the Australian Government Locator Service initiative?

What is recordkeeping metadata?

The way in which recordkeeping metadata is defined in the SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Project is related to evolving understandings of "description" in records continuum thinking. The term description is used in records continuum thinking to label a very broad concept. This concept is not set up as an alternative to traditional definitions of archival description. It does not focus on either the "front end" or the "back end" of the records life cycle. Rather it encompasses and extends traditional definitions with reference to the whole of the records continuum.

The way description is conceptualised within continuum thinking enables exploration of the relationship between:

• registration, classification and other recordkeeping processes in current recordkeeping systems; and
• the documentation of recordkeeping systems and their contexts of creation and use in archival control systems

both historically and in our cyberspace future. It opens up questions about where and when recordkeeping metadata might be captured and managed in electronic systems in distributed networks.

To give an idea of the scope of this definition of recordkeeping metadata, let's look at an historical example. Professor Neumayer was a Bavarian scientist who visited Victoria in the 1850s. His business dealings with the colonial government relating to the building of the Melbourne Observatory are documented in the inwards and outwards correspondence of the Chief Secretary. The recordkeeping metadata linked to these letters is detailed below.

There has been a tendency to mystify the concept of metadata within the records and archives world. The term metadata itself is borrowed from our IT colleagues and has come to mean many things to many people. It is clear from the SPIRT Project definition that recordkeeping and archival control systems have always been all about capturing and managing recordkeeping metadata.

Traditionally some kinds of metadata, eg relating to records content, structure and aspects of their immediate business context, management and use, have been captured and managed in current recordkeeping systems. Other kinds of metadata, eg information about the broader contexts of recordkeeping and archival processes, have been captured and managed in archival control systems. Some metadata has been present in the physical form, ordering, juxtaposition and location of the records themselves.

As we see in the above example, the Chief Secretary's 19^th century docketing system captured and managed metadata about records content and structure, and some context and recordkeeping process metadata. The associated registers and indexes ("control records") captured and managed more extensive metadata about business and recordkeeping processes, and the use of the record. The archival control system at the Public Record Office Victoria has captured and managed descriptive metadata about the Chief Secretary's recordkeeping system, its provenance and relationships to other records, as well as metadata about archival actions relating to the records in the system.

Much content and structure metadata in paper systems like the Chief Secretary's is captured and represented in the physical form of the documents themselves. Some context metadata is also captured and represented physically, eg by the physical placement of an inwards letter in a docket, the attachment of two pieces of related correspondence together, the physical ordering of folios, or the physical location of a records series in a registry or in the archives. In these systems physical location and custody carry contextual meaning. The associations thus made, eg between the documents that make up a record, between records of related transactions, or between records and their creator, reflect what today we would call logical associations vi.

In a paper world, as Chris Hurley has explored for us, a lot of broad contextual metadata is carried in the minds of users while the records remain in the organisation that created them. Like the records, users are located inside an organisation – the users know where they are and that defines the broader organisational context of the records for them. The contextual knowledge brought to the record by "insiders" includes information about organisational and functional provenance, the recordkeeping system itself and relationships between records. Physical ordering and location in a paper paradigm have also been partial evidence of the business process and its organisational context. Moreover requirements for the unique identification of records need only be satisfied within the local domain in which they are created.

When paper records move beyond the boundaries of the organisation or local domain in which they are created, then broader contextual metadata needs to be captured and the requirement for unique identification needs to be extended to satisfy the demands of a global domain. Typically such needs have come into play in the past when records are transferred to an archives repository (a global domain). If these needs are not met, "outsiders" will not be able to uniquely identify, retrieve and understand the meanings of the records vii.

The Australian series system has always had the capacity to document the broader contexts of recordkeeping both contemporaneously and historically. And the series system is able to deal with the intellectual control and management of records that will never be in the physical custody of the National Archives.

In cyberspace physical location may cease to carry meaning; physical boundaries break down; the distinction between insiders and outsiders based on physical location becomes less significant in relation to using records. Records in electronic networks may be managed from their creation in global rather than local domains. In electronic systems, in particular in distributed networks, it may be essential for much of the metadata that has been traditionally captured in archival control systems to be present in – or available to – current recordkeeping systems.

In order to uniquely identify, manage, retrieve and understand the meaning of records in the global domains of cyberspace, it becomes essential to:

• make what was before at least partially evident through physical formatting, ordering and location (custody) explicit in metadata captured in current recordkeeping systems, or knowledge bases linked to them
• document fully the logical associations that derive from the role records play in business processes and their contexts
• consider capturing and managing the broader contextual metadata, traditionally found in archival control systems, in current recordkeeping systems – or devising ways of linking more closely the metadata in archival control systems to current recordkeeping systems.

Standardising metadata for recordkeeping purposes

Recordkeepers, records managers and archivists have always managed metadata for the recordkeeping purposes identified below.

However, they are only beginning to come to terms with the need in distributed networked environments to assure interoperability – so that records can be identifiable, searchable, retrievable, useable, available and restrictable through common user interfaces. It is this imperative that drives efforts to standardise recordkeeping metadata.

The Strategic Partnership with Industry – Research & Training (SPIRT) Recordkeeping Metadata Project

The 1998 Strategic Partnership with Industry – Research & Training (SPIRT) Support Grant, 'Recordkeeping metadata standards for managing and accessing information resources in networked environments over time for government, social and cultural purposes', aims to provide a framework for standardising sets of recordkeeping metadata that can be attributed to records from their point of creation, eg by embedding, encapsulation or linking to metadata stores. The Project is jointly funded by the Australian Research Council and the industry partners (National Archives of Australia, Archives Authority of NSW, Queensland State Archives, Records Management Association of Australia, and the Australian Council of Archives).

The Project Team includes:

• Sue McKemmish, Chief Investigator, Monash University
• Ann Pederson, Chief Investigator, University of New South Wales
• Steve Stuckey, Partner Chief Investigator, National Archives of Australia
• David Roberts, Archives Authority of NSW
• Lee McGregor, Queensland State Archives
• Dennis Wheeler, Records Management Association of Australia
• Gavan McCarthy, Associate Investigator, Australian Council of Archives and Australian Science Archives Project
• Glenda Acland, Research Consultant
• Luisa Muscato, Researcher, National Archives of Australia
• Kate Cumming, Australian Postgraduate Award (Industry) holder.

Consultation and communication strategies are currently being put in place, including:

• a Web site
• a network of stakeholders comprising
  • - experts in records and archives and related areas
  • - major clients and users of recordkeeping and archival services
  • Australian and international researchers
  • - software developers and vendors
  • - the Australian and international recordkeeping community
  • - the wider information and metadata community
• processes for consultation and validation.

The objectives and methodology of the SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Project are outlined in the following table ix.

Project Objectives

• to codify, ie specify and standardise, the full range of recordkeeping metadata needed to manage records in electronic networked environments to meet current and future requirements for access to essential evidence
• to classify metadata elements according to their role in managing records to support decision making about what metadata to capture, and to assist in managing related risks

• to support interoperability with generic metadata standards, eg the Dublin Core and other sector-specific sets
• to support initiatives in relation to information locator systems, eg the Australian Government Locator Service

Project Methodology

• Define functionality required with reference to national and international projects, e.g. Chris Hurley's work on the Australian Common Practices Manual, and the University of British Columbia and University of Pittsburgh projects x
• Specify metadata sets captured in or associated with records in Australian recordkeeping and archival systems, eg registry systems, automated records and archival management systems, Australian series systems
• Analyse specifications to determine what functionality different types of metadata supports in relation to the dot points referenced above:

• Identify matching elements, redundancies and gaps
• Specify additional metadata
• Develop standardised Australian recordkeeping metadata set with guidelines for use, including the use of schemes, e.g. the Keyword AAA Thesaurus, qualifiers, extensions and syntax
• Validate and develop strategies for promulgating recordkeeping metadata standards (possibly through the Standards Australia framework)
• Classify standardised set in terms of functionality
• Map set against selected generic and sector specific sets, eg AGLS, Dublin Core, archival descriptive standards

A research project, "Metadata architecture to support persistence of essential evidence of business, social and cultural activity in distributed networked environments", is currently the subject of an Australian Research Council Large Grant Application (Chief Investigators Barbara Reed and Sue McKemmish). The proposed research would build on and extend the work being undertaken in the SPIRT Project. In particular it would address implementation frameworks for managing the dependencies of meaning and contingent nature of metadata in recordkeeping systems over time.

The conceptual basis of Australian recordkeeping metadata research in Records Continuum thinking

The frame of reference for Australian recordkeeping metadata research is records continuum thinking and practice as it has evolved in Australia over the last half century.

One of the keys to understanding the Project's approach to what metadata needs to be captured, persistently linked to documentation of social and business activity, and managed through time and space, lies in the continuum view of records. In continuum thinking, they are seen not as "passive objects to be described retrospectively", but as agents of action, "active participants in business processes and technologies" xi. This way of envisaging records has implications for the wider information world of cyberspace:

Another key to the approach being taken in the project is found in the way description is conceptualised in continuum thinking. A narrow traditional view of description is provided in Keeping Archives:

As discussed earlier in the paper, a records continuum view of description takes a much broader perspective. According to the continuum view, the process described above is but one in a series of descriptive processes that might be applied to records, and the purpose ascribed to it but one of the many purposes of description. The Australian series system has always embodied a much more complex view of the archival description function than that presented in Keeping Archives.

Although it is possible to limit the use of the series system to the description of records in custody, a fully implemented series system is capable of documenting current and historical recordkeeping systems and their contexts of creation and use, contemporaneously and over time. The development of the CRS system in the National Archives was based on a broad view of the purposes of archival descriptive systems:

In continuum thinking, description has evolved into an even broader concept xv. It encompasses recordkeeping processes that capture and inextricably link authoritative metadata to documents created in the context of social and business activity from the time of their creation and throughout their lifespan. As previously outlined, here metadata is defined as standardised information about the identity, authenticity, content, structure, context and essential management requirements of records. The management requirements referenced could relate to the administration of access terms and conditions, the implementation of restrictions on unauthorised use, the tracking of "use history", including the documentation of disposal, migration and retrieval action, or the enabling of discovery and delivery.

If archival description is defined as the post-transfer process of establishing intellectual control over archival holdings by preparing descriptions of the records, then those descriptions essentially function as cataloguing records, surrogates whose primary purpose is to help researchers to find relevant records. In the continuum, archival description is instead envisaged as part of a complex series of recordkeeping processes, involving the attribution of authoritative metadata from the time of records creation. Such a view of archival description is radically different from that which informs most international initiatives to standardise archival descriptive metadata, just as the Australian series system represents a very different approach to the intellectual control of records than archival descriptive systems in other countries.

Chris Hurley has summed up the implications of the continuum view of description thus:

The SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Project and the Australian Government

Information locator systems provide knowledge structures for representing, identifying, locating and delivering information resources, including records.

The National Archives of Australia has been designated lead agency for the development of the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS), an outcome of the work of the Information Management Steering Committee of the Office of Government Information Technology. This committee has proposed frameworks for government information policy and the deployment of technology into the 21^st century xvii.

The objectives of AGLS relate to promoting the visibility, accessibility and interoperability of government information, enabling individuals and organisations to transact business electronically with government agencies at all three levels, and supporting the related initiatives in the Investing for Growth package.

A key part of the AGLS is the promulgation of a standard set of metadata to be attributed to all Australian government documents made accessible in distributed networks xviii. The AGLS set adopted the fifteen Dublin Core elements and added two additional elements, functional descriptor and availability.

The Dublin Core initiative aims to establish a generic metadata set to be applied to all DIOs on the Internet xix. This core set is designed to be embedded or persistently linked to individual document-like information objects. Its primary objectives relate to information resource identification, discovery and interoperability, ie improving search capability in global networks.

Though intentionally minimalist, the Dublin Core set is also designed to be "extensible". This means that each of its fifteen elements can be extended by adopting specialised sets of metadata elements to provide more information. For example, the basic subject element could be extended by using Library of Congress subject headings, provided these were standardised in such a way that they were Dublin Core compliant. An associated project is the development of the Warwick Framework in which generic and cross-sectoral specific metadata sets can be applied.

As mentioned above, the AGLS metadata set extended the Dublin Core set by two elements, functional descriptor and availability. The functional descriptor was considered an essential element in a set that will be attributed to information resources that comprise significant quantities of records. The Keyword AAA Thesaurus (a whole-of-government administrative function based thesaurus, developed by the Archives Authority of NSW, and being customised for use by Commonwealth Government agencies) and agency Functions Thesauri can be a source of descriptor terms for the AGLS functional descriptor metadata element. The availability element was added as the purposes of the AGLS stretch beyond document discovery (the primary focus of the Dublin Core) to encompass document delivery.

Related projects, under the auspices of AGLS, relate to the development of a common entry point for all Australian government information (Commonwealth, State and Local), and of search engines to exploit the contextual metadata associated with them.

The Australian metadata community is also exploring how the metadata specified in standardised sets can be associated with information objects, e.g. through the Metaweb project of the National Library of Australia. Associating metadata with information objects can occur by embedding it within a document, through linking objects to separate metadata stores, or by encapsulating the document with metadata. The Distributed Systems Technology Centre, DSTC Pty Ltd, is also involved in a range of projects that are relevant to metadata related research and development initiatives xx.

It is envisaged that the AGLS scheme will operate in a decentralised manner and that government agencies will assign AGLS metadata at aggregate and item/object level, manage that metadata, and make it available to web based search engines for retrieval. Tenders for the writing of an AGLS Manual have been released and a Pilot Project is evaluating the ease with which the metadata can be created, captured, managed and migrated. The Pilot will also collect data on technologies employed by agencies to implement AGLS.

At the conception of the AGLS scheme it was recognised that a high proportion of information resources described or required online to support Internet based government services and transactions would be records. That is, in many cases AGLS metadata would be assigned to government records.

It was also recognised that the prime purpose of assigning AGLS metadata was to enable resource discovery and resource retrieval by authorised users, two of the functions also required of a recordkeeping system. Hence AGLS metadata assigned to records should theoretically be a subset of any standardised metadata set specified for recordkeeping purposes.

The SPIRT project aims to specify metadata for all of the functions required of recordkeeping systems. As the AGLS project preceded SPIRT, it was not possible for AGLS to be influenced by SPIRT findings. However it is important that as the SPIRT initiative proceeds it assesses AGLS to ensure that the metadata specifications for functional requirements common to AGLS and SPIRT are similarly represented.

Such compatability would ensure that at document creation, the AGLS metadata could be captured as part of the recordkeeping metadata capture process. The AGLS component could then be managed within a recordkeeping system and stripped off if need be in order to be associated with information objects available via the Internet.

The AGLS initiative recognises that agencies may wish to employ technology options other than recordkeeping systems for the creation and management of AGLS metadata. Nevertheless whatever technology option is chosen, the metadata requirements for AGLS and the resource discovery and retrieval components of the metadata specification arising out of SPIRT should be close.

Conclusion

Australian recordkeeping metadata research aims to develop metadata management regimes that will meet organisational, social and cultural needs for:

• The creation and management of records in networked environments
• Making records accessible with an array of other genres of recorded information through common user interfaces
• Records to continue to function over time and space - for a nanosecond or millennia:
• as evidence for governance, accountability, memory and identity purposes – their raison d'etre
• as sources of value-added information - information that can be accessed, exploited and reused for reasons unrelated to the business or social activity they document.

Without such regimes to support business activities in distributed networks and facilitate information accessibility and knowledge transmission:

In order to achieve our goals, we must understand the "dynamic nature of the record as an active participant in business processes and technologies over time", and "the integral relationship between documents recorded in the context of social and business activity and their identifying and enabling metadata" xxii.And we must link our Australian recordkeeping metadata initiatives to metadata-related developments in the broader information community, drawing on, and contributing our recordkeeping perspectives to, national and international efforts to build a global infrastructure of rules and standards for information management in the virtual world. Records continuum thinking provides a holistic framework for meeting the enormous challenges involved in devising recordkeeping metadata regimes to manage records and their meanings through time in complex, inter-related and rapidly co-evolving cultural, socio-legal, technological, functional and organisational environments.

Acknowledgements

Barbara Reed's articulation of the issues relating to researching the development of recordkeeping metadata regimes, especially in her article, "Metadata: Core Record or Core Business" (published in the last issue of Archives and Manuscripts), was a key reference point for this article.

The authors also gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Ann Pederson in reviewing this article. Her insightful comments and suggestions were greatly appreciated.

i. This article is based on a paper originally prepared by Sue McKemmish for the Working with Knowledge, International Conference on Archives, Canberra, 6-7 May 1998. Dagmar Parer contributed the section relating to the Australian Government Locator Service.

ii. Application for Strategic Partnership with Industry – Research and Training (SPIRT) Support in 1998: Recordkeeping metadata standards for managing and accessing information resources in networked environments over time for government, commerce, social and cultural purposes (Chief Investigators Sue McKemmish and Ann Pederson, Partner Chief Investigator Steve Stuckey), May 1997.

iii. Investing for Growth, 'http://www.dist.gov.au/growth/html/infoage.html'

iv. 1999 Large Research Grant Application, 'Metadata architecture to support persistence of essential evidence of business, social and cultural activity in distributed networked environments', February 1998 (Chief Investigators: Barbara Reed and Sue McKemmish).

v. The 1857 correspondence between Neumayer and the Chief Secretary is captured and documented in: VPRS 1189 Inwards Correspondence of the Chief Secretary's Office, Unit 744, 1857/8840, Letters re the Observatory VPRS 1187 Register of Letters Sent, 1857 VPRS 1186 Inwards Correspondence Registers, 1857 VPRS 1411 Index to Letters Received, 1857 VPRS 1188 Index to Letters Sent, 1855-59 Public Record Office of Victoria Series System Public Record Office of Victoria, Summary Guide, 1990

vi. As explored further in: Sue McKemmish, 'Are Records Ever Actual?' in Sue McKemmish and Michael Piggott, The Records Continuum: Ian Maclean and Australian Archives first fifty years, Ancora Press in association with Australian Archives, Clayton, 1994, pp.187-203.

vii. Chris Hurley explored these issues in the Masters teaching program at Monash University, especially through the distance education subject, LAR 5530 Managing the Records Continuum, developed by Sue McKemmish and Frank Upward, with critical inputs from Chris.

viii. Terry Cook, 'Archives in the post-custodial world: interaction of archival theory and practice since the publication of the Dutch Manual in 1898', paper delivered to the XIII International Congress on Archives, Beijing, 1996.

ix. he Project Objectives and Methodology are detailed in the Application and Research Plan for the Strategic Partnership with Industry – Research and Training (SPIRT) Support in 1998: Recordkeeping metadata standards for managing and accessing information resources in networked environments over time for government, commerce, social and cultural purposes.

x. University of British Columbia, 'The Preservation and Integrity of Electronic Records': 'http://www.slais.ubc.ca/users/duranti/' University of Pittsburgh, 'Functional Requirements for Evidence in Recordkeeping' project, Business Acceptable Communications model: 'http://www.lis.pitt.edu/~nhprc/mea96.html'

xi. For further elaboration of this view, see Barbara Reed's article, 'Metadata: core record or core business', Archives and Manuscripts, Vol 25, No 2, Nov 1997, pp.218-41.

xii. 1999 Large Research Grant Application, 'Metadata architecture to support persistence of essential evidence of business, social and cultural activity in distributed networked environments', February 1998 (Chief Investigators: Barbara Reed and Sue McKemmish).

xiii. Judith Ellis (ed.), Keeping Archives, 2nd edition, W D Thorpe, Port Melbourne, 1993, Chapter 8, p.223.

xiv. Sue McKemmish, 'Are Records Ever Actual?' pp. 189-90.

xv. The continuum notion of description is being further explored in the Masters teaching programs of Monash University, especially through the distance education subject, LAR 5530 Managing the Records Continuum, developed by Sue McKemmish and Frank Upward, with input from Chris Hurley.

xvi. LAR 5530 Managing the Records Continuum, Topic 10, 1997.

xvii. See Managing Government Information as a National Strategic Resource at 'http://www.ogit.gov.au/publications/IMSC/imscrept.html'.

xviii. Accessible via the National Archives of Australia site: 'http://www.naa.gov.au/

xix. See the OCLC site for more information on the Dublin Core and Warwick framework: 'http:purl.oclc.org/metadata/dublin_core/'

xx. See the DSTC site ('http://www.dstc.edu.au/') for details of these projects, e.g. next generation middleware, flexible configurable workflow prototypes, and global information access.

xxi. 1999 Large Research Grant Application, 'Metadata architecture to support persistence of essential evidence of business, social and cultural activity in distributed networked environments', February 1998 (Chief Investigators: Barbara Reed and Sue McKemmish).

xxii. Phrases coined by Barbara Reed and Ann Pederson (respectively).

© 1998 Sue McKemmish and Dagmar Parer. All Rights Reserved. Licence: Limited to on-line viewing and the making of one (1) printout for off-line reading purposes only.

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