§ 1236.54 — Metadata Requirements

(a) General. To ensure that intellectual and physical control of the digital records can be maintained, this regulation specifies metadata elements that must be captured in a recordkeeping system, or embedded in each file, or both captured in a recordkeeping system and embedded in each file. Ensure that the metadata remains accurate and consistent regardless of where it is stored.

(1) If using metadata to capture relationships between source records as required in § 1236.42(b), agencies must use the “Relation” metadata elements in table 1 to paragraph (c)(1) of this section for basic administrative metadata.

(2) If using different metadata labels from the ones required in this section, agencies must document the labels that the agency uses and note this in the Details section of the ERA (Electronic Records Archive) Transfer Request (TR).

(3) Determine the appropriate level to be used as the source of descriptive metadata. Depending on the agency's existing recordkeeping practices and level of intellectual control, use information from the project, record series, file unit, or item level as the source for administrative, technical, and descriptive metadata fields. If the components of a record have not been individually indexed with unique descriptions, apply the series or file unit-level descriptions to all of the image files within that grouping. If the components of the record do not have individual titles, the agency must apply the item Record IDs instead.

(4) Include additional metadata if it is captured. If other metadata elements are provided in addition to the metadata requirements in this subpart, NARA will accept that metadata as part of the transfer process.

(b) Metadata capture requirements. Agencies must:

(1) Capture the metadata specified by paragraphs (c) through (e) of this section at the file or item level as part of the digitization project;

(2) Create file names and record IDs that are unique to each image file;

(3) Embed the metadata specified by paragraph (c) of this section in each image file, capture and maintain it in a recordkeeping system, associate it with the records it describes, and keep it consistent and accurate in both places;

(4) Ensure that scanning equipment embeds the system-generated technical metadata specified by table 4 to paragraph (e)(1) of this section for format technical metadata and table 5 to paragraph (e)(2) of this section for processing technical metadata in each image file, and ensure that image processing does not alter or delete it; and

(5) Transfer metadata to NARA in CSV format.

(c) Administrative metadata. (1) Capture in a recordkeeping system and embed in each image file the following administrative metadata:

Table 1 to Paragraph (c)(1)—Basic Administrative Metadata

(2) Capture in a recordkeeping system and embed in each file any of the following access and use restrictions the metadata inherited from the source records:

Table 2 to Paragraph (c)(2)—Access and Use Restrictions Administrative Metadata

(d) Descriptive metadata. Capture the following descriptive metadata from source records at the lowest level needed to support access and preservation and to maintain contextual information. Depending on the agency's existing recordkeeping practices and level of intellectual control, it may use information from the project level, record series, file unit, or item, as the source for descriptive metadata. If the components of a record have not been individually indexed with unique descriptions, apply the series or file unit-level descriptions to all of the image files within that grouping. If source records share a common material type or dimensions, auto-populate the source type and source dimension metadata. If the components of the record do not have individual titles, the agency must apply the item Record IDs instead. Capture the metadata in a recordkeeping system for each image file:

Table 3 to Paragraph (d)—Descriptive Metadata Table

(e) Technical metadata. (1) Ensure that the following values are embedded in each image file and that image processing does not delete or alter them:

Table 4 to Paragraph (e)(1)—Technical Metadata—Image Table

(2) Ensure that the following process metadata elements are recorded for each image file:

Table 5 to Paragraph (e)(2)—Technical Metadata—Process Table

(3) Capture the following technical metadata in a recordkeeping system for each image file, and use them to monitor digital records for corruption or alteration:

Table 6 to Paragraph (e)(3)—Technical Metadata—Checksum Table