The PREMIS Editorial Committee is pleased to announce the publication of a revised PREMIS RDF/OWL ontology based on the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata version 2.2 [1], a digital preservation standard based on the OAIS reference model. An earlier version of the PREMIS OWL ontology [2] was made available in October 2011, sticking as closely as possible to the PREMIS Data Dictionary semantic unit definitions. Before that time the PREMIS Data Dictionary was only implemented as an XML schema, which remains ideal for creating, validating and storing the preservation metadata of a particular digital asset.
This revision of the ontology introduces several changes from the previous
draft version:
·
The PREMIS
ontology is now officially within the loc.gov
namespace; it's namespace is now: http://www.loc.gov/premis/rdf/v1#
·
It integrates changes from PREMIS version 2.2,
especially the enhanced model for the Rights entity
· It makes use
of 24 value vocabularies - each reflecting a suggested or controlled list of
values from the PREMIS Data Dictionary - that have been added to id.loc.gov [3], covering a much wider range of
PREMIS semantic units than before (21 value vocabularies are new additions to id.loc.gov as of
this announcement; they may all be reviewed at http://id.loc.gov/preservationdescriptions/)
·
It makes minor corrections and implements a more
Linked Data approach, rather than attempting to provide properties and classes for
every semantic unit in the Data Dictionary. For instance, Extensions were
dropped, since combining external vocabularies are built-in capabilities of
Linked Data
·
Fuller documentation of the classes and properties
This OWL ontology allows one to provide a Linked Data-friendly,
PREMIS-endorsed serialization of the PREMIS Data Dictionary version 2.2. This
can be leveraged to have a Linked Data-friendly data management function for a
preservation repository, allowing for SPARQL querying. It integrates PREMIS information with other
Linked Data compliant datasets, especially format registries, which are now
referenced from the PREMIS ontology (for instance, the Unified Digital Format
Registry [4] and PRONOM [5]). Thus information can be more easily
interconnected, especially between different repository databases. The OWL
design of PREMIS should NOT be considered as a replacement for the XML Schema:
the two of them should rather be considered complementary. Work to align the PREMIS ontology with the
PROV ontology [6] is being considered.
The ontology is public and open for review and is available at: http://www.loc.gov/premis/rdf/v1#.
Please send comments by July 30, 2013 to the PREMIS Implementers’ Group list ([log in to unmask]).
[1] http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/v2/premis-2-2.pdf
[2] http://multimedialab.elis.ugent.be/users/samcoppe/Ontologies/premis/index.html
[3] http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/preservation.html
[4] http://udfr.org/onto/onto.rdf
[5] http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/Default.aspx