Introduction

All libraries employ metadata to support the administration and delivery of their collections. In a traditional library much of this relates to the acquisition of materials and their processing before they reach the shelves. In a digital library its scope is likely to be more extensive and certainly more complex. There has to be a central place for this type of metadata in any integrated strategy. Although most of it will be invisible to the end-user, it has an essential role that cannot be neglected.

Much of the rationale for administrative metadata in a digital library stems from the imperatives of the long-term preservation of its collections. Two core features of the digital medium, the opacity of binary encoding and the subsequent need to decipher the files that make up an object before they can be read, necessitate at least basic technical metadata if a collection is to be viable in the future. This opacity also brings up issues of trust and authenticity: future users will need to know something of the provenance of an object, how and by whom it was created and what changes have been made to it since if they are to be fully confident that it is what it claims to be. For this we need what is known as digital provenance metadata, an audit trail of what has happened to a digital object from its creation to its present form.

Although it has an important role in ensuring the future viability of collections, administrative metadata also features significantly in the here and now. One significant area that it covers is IPR. These include the assertion of ownership in a digital asset, the statement of any copyright provisions that apply to it, the granting of permissions for access and the control of its delivery to users within the boundaries set by these rights and permissions. Rights metadata, which fulfils these functions, is therefore a key component here.

Administrative metadata clearly plays an important part in realising many of the strategic principles outlined in Chapter 3. It is a core feature of all stages of the digital curation lifecycle (Principle 1) and, of course, has a central role in preservation for the future (Principle 2).