preservationsstandardien

Preservationsstandardien refers to a family of guidelines, specifications, and best practices that govern how cultural heritage, scientific data, and other valuable materials are preserved over the long term. The term is used across libraries, archives, museums, and digital repositories and encompasses both physical preservation and digital preservation. The goal is to maintain accessibility, authenticity, and intelligibility across changing technologies and conditions.

Core concepts include selection and appraisal, preservation planning, and actions such as environmental control, handling, storage, and packaging for physical objects; and format identification, metadata, packaging, and migration or emulation strategies for digital items. Preservation standards aim to ensure that objects remain usable and trustworthy despite technological change, data decay, or material degradation.

Digital preservation standards and frameworks are central to preservationsstandardien. Notable elements include the OAIS reference model (ISO 14721), which provides a framework for long-term archival systems; certification guidelines such as ISO 16363 for trustworthy repositories; preservation metadata specifications like PREMIS (ANSI/NISO Z39.87); metadata encoding and packaging standards such as METS; format registries such as PRONOM; and packaging approaches like BagIt. Interoperability is often achieved through common metadata schemas (Dublin Core, and domain-specific schemas) and crosswalks between formats and repositories.

Governance and adoption involve international and national standards bodies (such as ISO, NISO, DIN), professional associations, and national archives, which promote adherence, validation, and certification of repositories and practices. Implementing preservationsstandardien requires organizational commitment, adequate resources, and ongoing adaptation to new formats and technologies, to protect the integrity and usability of both physical and digital holdings over time.