Open Archival Information System

OAIS (Open Archival Information System or Open Archive Information System ) is published a reference model for a dynamic, expandable Archives Information System and as an ISO standard 14721:2012 in August 2012. Version 2 expands the original ISO standard published in 2003. The OAIS reference model is considered the most important standard for electronic archiving.

The reason for the development of this model was the realization that digitally archived documents for a long time for various reasons could no longer be readable.

Problems that must be observed in the long-term archiving, caused inter alia by

• Rights
• Not more available devices and applications to be able to read and interpret Archived Media
• Company-specific or generally obsolete, insufficiently documented formats
• Loss of the layout, if that content is stored separately from the layout.

The reference model describes an archive as an organization, interact in the people and systems to make a defined user base archival material available. The implementation of an OAIS compliant archive is not set.

The development of the standard was initiated by NASA and progress together with the Space Agency ESA and space research centers in the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Brazil, Japan and Russia. In May 1999, the Advisory Committee for Space Data Systems ( CCSDS ) presented the first draft of the "Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System ( OAIS ) ", who was convicted in 2003 in the ISO standard 14721. 2009 was followed by a revised version, the CCSDS "pink book". This version 2 of OAIS was established in June 2012 by the CCSDS published as " magenta book" ( a free download ) and adopted by the ISO as ISO 14721:2012 in August, 2012.

" Open" means that the development of the OAIS is happening in open forums, and does not include unrestricted access to an archive.