The National Libraries task to save and preserve the national cultural heritage has turned to a new challenge in a digital world. The preservation of born-digital material for future use requires not only saving the digital object itself but also information about the object, preservation metadata. This is a relatively new issue and the library community has very little experience in this area. It has become evident that international cooperation is necessary to solve the task and that the development of international standards is of fundamental significance. This thesis investigates what has been done to meet the problems with the fast obsolescence of digital material with the focus on metadata. It examines the international collaboration in this area and the results. Ten European national libraries were inquired and their approach to long term preservation of the born-digital heritage concerning collection and strategies for handling of preservation metadata. The study shows that the Scandinavian countries began collecting with web harvesting while most countries in Central Europe work with deliveries. It is also shown that the regional differences are becoming smaller and that today most of the countries are following a combined approach. Web harvesting requires a different management of metadata than digital deliveries. However, within the different methods the solutions are rather close. / Uppsatsnivå: D

Digital communication produces millions of emails, text messages, movies, images, and much more every day. As with all historical records, digital records are important to preserve because they allow us to study the past. There are, however, several challenges regarding their preservation. Unlike many of their analogue counterparts, digital records rely on a combination of hardware and software to be accessible, but hardware and software eventually degrade and become obsolete. This makes digital records inaccessible because the means to render them are no longer available. In addition to these technological challenges, there are issues surrounding appraisal, copyright, significant properties, and metadata. This thesis studies the challenges of digital preservation and what is being done to address them. I begin by introducing the challenges surrounding this topic and the methods of preservation that are currently available to archivists. I then analyse leading digital preservation standards such as the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) and Preservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies (PREMIS) as well as digital preservation systems including Archivematica and Preservica. I also conduct a case study of Archivematica to analyse how well it manages the challenges of digital preservation. I conclude by explaining that there are no perfect solutions to digital preservation problems. The best that can currently be done is to manage the issues rather than solve them. / February 2017

Digital preservation is a significant challenge for cultural heritage institutions and other repositories of digital information resources. Recognizing the critical role of metadata in any successful digital preservation strategy, the Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies (PREMIS) has been extremely influential on providing a "core" set of preservation metadata elements that support the digital preservation process. However, there is no evidence, in the form of previous research, as to what factors explain and predict the level of adoption of PREMIS. This research focused on identifying factors that affect the adoption of PREMIS in cultural heritage institutions. This study employed a web-based survey to collect data from 123 participants in 20 country as well as a semi-structured, follow-up telephone interview with a smaller sample of the survey respondents. Roger's diffusion of innovation theory was used as a theoretical framework. The main constructs considered for the study were relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability, and institution readiness. The study yielded both qualitative and quantitative data, and analysis showed that all six factors influence the adoption of PREMIS in varying degrees. Results of a regression analysis of adoption level on the six factors showed a statistically significant relationship. The R2 value for the model was .528, which means that 52.8% of the variance in PREMIS adoption was explained by a combination of the six factors. Considering the complexity of issue, this study has important implications for future research on preservation metadata and provides recommendations for researchers and stakeholders engaged in metadata standards development efforts.

(EN) This thesis is dedicated to the processes of digitization and metadata description, as well as the links that connect them. In recent years, another topic has been becoming relevant for both mentioned processes - the logical long-term preservation of digital objects. Long-term preservation is dependent on metadata and therefore on the processes of digitization, when some important metadata is created. The first introductory chapter of the thesis briefly describes, with an emphasis on metadata, digitization and theoretical and practical problems of long-term preservation of digital objects. The OAIS reference framework is also analysed, since it is the background for digital preservation and present preservation metadata standards. OAIS is also important for the shape and functionality of digital repositories. Metadata is also the topic of the next chapter of the thesis. General metadata use and its development are discussed, with emphasis on administrative, technical and preservation metadata. The following chapter focuses on the use of metadata in the National Library of the Czech Republic. It describes the evolution during two periods leading up to the present. This section includes comments on how long-term preservation has been reflected in used metadata standards. The second-to-last part...