Pulling it all together: use of METS in RLG cultural materials service

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Abstract RLG has used METS for a particular application, that is as a wrapper for structural metadata. When RLG cultural materials was launched, there was no single way to deal with`c omplex digital objects''. METS provides a standard means of encoding metadata regarding the digital objects represented in RCM, and METS has now been fully integrated into the workflow for this service.

Interpretive journeys and METS

“…Fortunately, it was clear at an early stage of the Appraisal that the list of possible schema choices could be reduced considerably by focusing on digital repository initiatives dealing with composite digital objects whose complexity was of an order similar to that of MoPark Interpretive Journeys. Consideration of the issues encountered in such projects (Alemneh et al, 2002;Bekaert 2003Chandler, 2002;Chen, 2000Chen, , 2002Farb and Riggio, 2004;Guenther and McCallum, 2003;Proffitt, 2004; Interpretive journeys and METS Staples et al, 2003;Tennant, 2003a), and of the kinds of metadata schema employed to deal with them, allowed the list of possible schema relevant to MoPark to be narrowed to those capable of managing structured content -the defining feature of complex digital objects like Interpretive Journeys. With proprietary solutions considered inappropriate and unwise because of a likely long-term need to interoperate with other repositories in Scotland and beyond, the range of possibilities to choose from was narrowed to METS, MPEG-21, and IMS-CP, three options which, whilst not directly comparable in respect of their primary purpose, are recognised as roughly interchangeable standards for managing structured content (New York University Libraries, 2004), and are used as such by the various projects examined in the Appraisal:…”

“…Maintained by the Library of Congress (Library of Congress, 2004a), it has the support of the influential Digital Library Federation, and is designed to be used with a range of "extension schemas" such as MODS, MIX, MARCXML and TextMD (Cundiff, 2004;Library of Congress (2004b, c); Ockerbloom et al, 2004;Tennant, 2003a). In use in, or recommended by, a growing range of initiatives (Cundiff, 2004;Chandler, 2002;Guenther and McCallum, 2003;Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2001;Niu, 2002;Proffitt, 2004;Semple, 2004;Staples et al, 2003;Stehno, 2003;Tennant, 2003a), METS is also an integral part of at least one digital library management package (Staples et al, 2003) and was at the time of the work reportedly being considered for future use in MIT's widely-implemented DSpace software (Smith et al, 2003).…”

“…. METS was found to be in wide use by a variety of significant initiatives and prominent organisations in the Library, Museum and Archive domains (Cundiff, 2004;Chandler, 2002;Guenther and McCallum, 2003;Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2001;Niu, 2002;Proffitt, 2004;Semple, 2004;Staples et al, 2003;Stehno, 2003;Tennant, 2003a) and is designed for managing complex digital objects in digital repositories (Coalition for Networked Information, 2003). ( 4) It is supported by key organisations and regarded as a stable standard.…”

Enhancing access to research data

“…The guidelines for expressing DC in XML (at the time of designing the eBank UK schema) however stipulated that the instantiation of a DC description within a record should relate to a description of only one resource. It is likely that the guidelines for encoding DC in XML will change [55]. However at the time it was necessary to produce multiple DC records, one for the general description relating to the collection of data files, and minimal ones describing the stages.…”

“…METS recognizes that describing digital objects requires an increasingly complex series of metadata descriptionsadministrative, structural and technical metadata, for example. A review of METS and examples of its applications featured in a recent issue of the journal Library Hi Tech [55] Bekaert, et al highlighted the relevance of MPEG-DIDL [40] to the digital library community [6]. MPEG-21 is an ISO-approved standard, and its framework provides a well-defined data model for complex digital objects, as well as an XML Schema for representing compliant digital objects.…”