7 - Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research

networks. The effort to meet the cultural imperative of digital preservation thus requires a
complex iteration and reiteration of exploration, development and solution as the relevant
factors and their interrelationships emerge and become clearer and more tractable. And the
first task in the effort is not to posit answers, but to frame questions and issues in such a
way as to engage the many parties already working in various ways with digital
information so that they can help us understand the relevant issues and, within the context
of their work, help us identify, define and incorporate solutions that contribute to the
larger, common goal of preserving our cultural heritage.
9. Information Objects in the Digital Landscape
Information objects in digital form, like those in other forms, move through life cycles.
They are created, edited, described and indexed, disseminated, acquired, used, annotated,
revised, re-created, modified and retained for future use or destroyed by a complex,
interwoven community of creators and other owners, disseminators, value-added services,
and institutional and individual users. The digital world is still too new for us to describe
fully the life cycle of the information objects that do now or will in the future reside there,
but what surely unites the community of actors in their various information-based
activities is their common purpose in support of the pursuit of knowledge.
The pursuit of knowledge is a process in which the emergence of new knowledge builds
on and reconstructs the old. Knowledge cannot advance without consistent and reliable
access to information sources, past and present. It is the archival function in the system of
knowledge creation and use that serves to identify and retain important sources of
information and to ensure continuing access to them. How reliable the archival process
proves to be in the emerging digital environment hinges on the trustworthy operation of
digital archives and on their ability to maintain the integrity of the objects they are charged
to preserve
10. Metadata and the Warehouse
Managing metadata is actually a complex endeavor that can cause severe problems if you
do not handle it in the right way. Focusing on metadata can have substantial rewards for
companies, as long as they approach it in a comprehensive manner. Let us analyze why
this problem is so complex. First, consider what metadata is. In simple terms, metadata is
the information about the data stored in databases, and it incorporates the rules about how
to use that information.
Most large organizations have a common problem: They have multiple data sources. Each
of these data sources has its own set of predefined rules, naming conventions, and unique
file formats. Even when dealing with a single data source, there are complexities inherent
in metadata. In some cases, there were as many as 10 or 12 different representations of the
same information. Because each version had slightly different sources, processing rules,
and formatting, it was almost impossible for the user or administrator to know which data
source to use under different circumstances.
As you increase the number of data sources, the complexities involved with a data
warehouse increase exponentially. This complexity becomes the problem and concern of
those charged with building and managing the data warehouse. Organizations now must
take information from several different data sources and push them together to create the
illusion of a centralized corporate data source. They can take several steps to accomplish
this.
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