The trustworthy online technical environment metadata database – TOTEM

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Digital objects are closely tied to the technical environments in which they were created and utilized. To ensure long-term preservation and access to digital materials, it is crucial to meticulously document the hardware and software dependencies of each digital object within a preserved collection. This includes details about the computer hardware, operating system, plug-ins, software libraries, and the environment used during preservation actions like migration or emulation. Gathering and maintaining even the basic technical environment metadata is a complex and time-consuming endeavor. To tackle this issue, the University of Portsmouth Future Proof Computing Group, as part of the European Commission KEEP project, developed the TOTEM (Trustworthy Online Technical Environment Metadata) technical registry. This registry combines generic data models, a database implementation, and a metadata schema with a compatible OWL ontology created by the University of Cologne's Computer Science in the Humanities professorship within the European Commission PLANETS project. The applications of TOTEM are extensive, enabling memory institutions and commercial entities to access a wide range of technical environments for various digital objects, including digital art and potentially 3D visualizations and simulations.