**Report on the OAIS meetings held in France, organized by the CNES and
the National library of France (Bibliothèque nationale de France -
BnF)**

# MEETING ON MAY 30, 2000

Meeting between the CNES, the Bibliothèque nationale de France and a
Dutch representative of the NEDLIB project. The main purpose of this
meeting was to exchange opinions and experience in the archiving field
and concrete application of the OAIS Reference Model.

NEDLIB summarized its practical experience in the use of the Reference
Model in a document accessible on the Web

http://www.kb.nl/coop/nedlib/results/OAISreviewbyNEDLIB.html

The NEDLIB experience is very positive and highly interesting.
Appendix 1 below describes our own assessment of the NEDLIB approach in
order to identify what could still be even further improved in the
Reference Model.

# MEETING ON JUNE 15, 2000

The purpose of this meeting, organized conjointly by the CNES and the
Bibliothèque nationale de France, was the presentation of the Reference
Model for open archiving systems (called the OAIS Model).

A certain number of scientific, technical and industrial organizations,
as well as institutions more specialized in the archiving and heritage
preservation domain were invited to the meeting.

A non-exhaustive list of the participating organizations is given below:

\- technical or scientific public companies or organizations:

> \- the CNES
>
> \- the National Scientific Research Center (Centre National de la
> Recherche Scientifique)
>
> \- the National Geographic Institute (Institut Géographique National)
>
> \- the Atomic Energy Commissariat (Commissariat à l\'Energie Atomique)
>
> \- the French Institute Of Petroleum (Institut Français des Pétroles)
>
> \- the French Electricity Board (Electricité De France)
>
> \- the National Office of Aeronautic Research
>
> \- industrial companies such as AIRBUS

\- heritage institutions or institutions in charge of preserving
documents in digital format:

> \- the Bibliothèque Nationale de France,
>
> \- the Archives of France,
>
> \- the Contemporary Archives
>
> \- the National Ministry of Education.

Several presentations focused on the OAIS Model and its use were made by
the CNES and the BnF. The general impression of participants in relation
to the Model is highly positive. The question concerning the consistency
of the vocabulary used by traditional archives and the vocabulary used
in the Reference Model was posed. In fact, when new concepts are
involved, there are no special problems. For concepts already existing
and named differently, there may some advantage in considering the
creation of a thesaurus.

Lastly, is seemed to participants that it was useful to continue
exchanges and to pool information between French organizations in charge
of the digital data archiving activity. To this end an e-mail discussion
forum was set up and the constitution of an \'archiving\' pole in France
has been decided.

# APPENDIX : BRIEF COMMENTS ON THE CONTRIBUTION BY NEDLIB {#appendix-brief-comments-on-the-contribution-by-nedlib .Titre-Annexe .unnumbered}

Refer to the text available at the following address :

http://www.kb.nl/coop/nedlib/results/OAISreviewbyNEDLIB.html

# The \'Preservation\' function {#the-preservation-function .Titre-Annexe .unnumbered}

Long-term preservation of information constitutes the leading essential
mission of an OAIS archiving system. This is translated in the Model by
a series of consequences and at multiple levels:

For example: have representation information without which our bits
cannot be interpreted.

For example: the \'archival storage\" function must preserve the bits.

However, there is no central monitoring and control function for this
aspect. Technological developments must be taken into account in order
to decide on the migrations to undertake. Who decides on the migrations?
This is not easy to find in the Model. The \'storage\" function
comprises a sub-function \'migrate media\', but this only covers part of
the necessary migrations. A function handling all hard and soft aspects
of preservation would clarify the situation. Its role would be to ensure
permanently that all conditions required to preserve data using the
available technologies are satisfied.

This function could be either an integral function of the Model or a
sub-function, part of administration. From this point of view, the
questions posed by NEDLIB seem justified.

# Emulation {#emulation .Titre-Annexe .unnumbered}

With regard to the substance, we are in full agreement with the
reservations expressed by the Reference Model concerning the question of
emulation (paragraph 5.2).

However, we must be aware that today there are thousands of electronic
documents in CD-ROM form, including the executable software required for
access to the information in these publications. In particular, this
concerns major publications such as encyclopedias.

For these publications, the Reference Model cannot simply adopt the
standpoint that, in the absence of a source code and appropriate
documentation, it is not and will not be possible to preserve these
publications.

The emulation technique is still too young to be able to settle this
problem definitively. The Model may be able to handle this problem in a
separate chapter. While describing the limits and dangers of this
approach, the possibility of developing this part, taking into account
long or medium-term experience, will be kept open.

Refer to the report by Jeff Rothenberg on this subject

http://www.kb.nl/nedlib/results/emulationpreservationreport.pdf

# Functional Model {#functional-model .Titre-Annexe .unnumbered}

The definition of a \'delivery and capture\' function located outside
the OAIS archive does not cause any special problems. It is quite
acceptable that the entity delivering SIPs to the OAIS archive be a
particular department within the same institution. In this case, this
department is considered by OAIS as being a \'data producer\'. The
introduction of a \'packaging and access\' function depends on
implementation choices.