SPIRT Project

Working within the context of a range of metadata related initiatives in Australia and elsewhere, the Recordkeeping Metadata Project aims to comprehensively specify and codify recordkeeping metadata in ways that enable it to be fully understood and deployed both within and beyond the records and archives profession. The conceptual basis for the Recordkeeping Metadata Project is located in Records Continuum thinking and practice as it has evolved in Australia over the last half century. One of the keys to understanding the Project’s approach to what metadata needs to be captured, persistently linked to documentation of social and business activity, and managed through time and space, lies in the continuum view of records. In continuum thinking, records are seen not as passive objects to be described retrospectively, but as agents of action, active participants in business processes and technologies. The Australian Recordkeeping Metadata Schema (2000) is the main deliverable of a 1997-98 Monash University SPIRT Project, Archival Metadata Standards for Managing and Accessing Information Resources in Networked Environments over Time for Government, Social and Cultural Purposes. Principal Chief Investigators: Professor Sue McKemmish, Monash University, Ann Pederson, University of NSW, and Steve Stuckey, National Archives of Australia. It was funded by the Australian Research Council and a consortium of industry partners, the National Archives of Australia, State Records Authority of NSW, Queensland State Archives and the Records Management Association of Australia, and supported by the Distributed Systems Technology Centre.