PANDORA, Australia's Web Archive: How Much Metadata Is Enough?

In this article, the history of the development of Australia's Web archive, PANDORA, is presented. Criteria for selection, harvesting techniques, the static or dynamic nature of the material, and the technical aspects of archiving are discussed. Policy matters include copyright, permission to archive, legal deposit arrangements, requests to remove harvested material. Practices for administrative, preservation, descriptive, and rights metadata are reviewed. Observations are made on the various functions served by the metadata. The dataflow and the distribution of the cataloguing data are cited. Resources that need periodic re-harvesting due to their dynamic nature and resources that involve parent-child relationships have implications for cataloguing workload. Staffing resources and costs are assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]