Digital Library Metadata make my head hurt

I’ve been working with a variety of digital library metadata standards the last week or so. Developing project specifications and doing some rapid prototyping of forms for cataloging digital library objects both born digital and digitized. Digital library metadata standards are a hodge-podge of acronyms (METS, MODS, MIX) each of them equally complex on its own. However, when you put them together to form a complete record for a digital object it makes ones head hurt. A lot. So I’ve been working with the pieces one by one. MODS first because it intimidates me the least. Then MIX which is for digital images. Now I’m working with METS which stitches everything together. METS is what is making my head hurt the most. It is deceptively simple on the surface. However, when you spend time with it you realize that it is very complex. The good part of the complexity is that it is really flexible. The bad part is that there is a whole lot to absorb.

There are still lots of technical metadata specs for different formats to deal with but UH really hasn’t got to far into media, YET. I’m making some headway with my prototypes and looking forward to handing stuff over to my staff in December. In the meantime there is quite a bit of reading left to do.

Some key resources I’ve been using to educate myself and make decisions.

MODS

• Library of Congress MODS site
• LOC MODS Implementation Registry – sites using MODS
• MODS in action – Open Search of Georgia PINES catalog for “pottery”
• MODS Editor at Brown University – helpful for getting an idea what a MODS editor interface can look like

METS

• METS website at Library of Congress – examples here that are useful to see what METS looks like
• METS Implementation Registry – see who else is using METS and for what
• The Australian METS Profile – A Journey about Metadata – an article at D-Lib which discusses implementing METS at the National Library of Australia. Really good diagram