Metadata Encoded and Transmission Standard (METS)

METS is a generalised metadata framework, developed to encode the structural metadata for digital objects and related descriptive and administrative metadata. It is especially interesting for archives because it can combine images to objects and describe their internal structure. Launched by the Digital Library Federation, the METS initiative seeks to provide a single, standard mechanism for encoding all forms of metadata for digital objects. METS will simplify both the exchange of objects between repositories and the development of software tools for search and display of those objects. Additionally, METS encoding will provide a coherent means for archiving digital objects and their metadata.

-> More information can be found on the METS home page.

Information on apeMETS as used in the Archives Portal Europe

The "State of the art (SOTA) report on METS and recommendations for its implementation in the Archives Portal Europe" (Deliverable D4.7) of the APEx Project was just completed. It

• explains how the apeMETS profile was developed within the APEx project
• deals with how the apeMETSRights profile was built
• encodes the descriptions of 1) apeMETS and 2) apeMETSRights
• describes the use of apeMETS, including the local use of apeMETS besides the use in the portal.
• presents different cases of using METS in conjunction with the Archives Portal Europe
• explains shortly how a conversion script was developed to transform an apeEAD file with several constituent links per archival unit into an apeEAD file plus newly-created apeMETS files in order to link to digital objects in a more structured way
• gives some general ideas on how apeMETS could be developed into a topic for the planned Archives Portal Europe Foundation (APEF)

Please find here the Annexes of the deliverable:

• Annex 1: apeMETS profile; the whole profile as an XML file offers a detailed description of apeMETS and its use; furthermore it already contains example files
• Annex 2: apeMETS encoding table; all elements and attributes of apeMETS in a well-structured table
• Annex 3: apeMETS schema; the schema to be used for validating METS files against apeMETS
• Annex 4: apeMETS examples; examples of apeMETS as constituent XML files
• Annex 5: apeEAD2apeMETS transformation script
• Annex 6: apeMETSRights encoding table; all elements and attributes of apeMETSRights in a well-structured table
• Annex 7: apeMETSRights schema; the schema to be used for validating the administrative metadata section of METS files against apeMETSRights in combination with a validation against apeMETS
• Annex 8: apeMETSRights example; example to learn and see more about how apeMETSRights can be used

For any questions and more details please use the Contact form.