Which standard is used for basic properties in preservation metadata?

• A. MARC
• B. PREMIS
• C. Dublin Core
• D. METS

Answer: (C)

Preservation metadata uses different levels of detail, but for basic descriptive properties you want a simple, interoperable set of elements. Dublin Core fits this role because it provides a lightweight, widely adopted vocabulary for fundamental descriptions like title, creator, date, format, and identifiers. This makes it ideal for capturing the essential descriptive information about a digital object in preservation workflows without introducing extra complexity.

In contrast, PREMIS is designed for preservation-specific information—such as preservation events, agents involved, and technical metadata related to the object's lifecycle—rather than just basic description. METS is a packaging framework that can embed multiple standards (including Dublin Core and PREMIS) inside a single package, while MARC is a library-oriented bibliographic schema not tailored to the preservation metadata layer. So for basic properties, Dublin Core is the best fit.