After the Imaging officers have completed scanning the manuscript it is necessary to create a METS document.
METS is a data structure for describing and managing complex digital library objects. Administrative, structural, and descriptive metadata is created for the webpage to hold all the pieces together, allow them to be managed, and allow them to be displayed and accessed online.
The Library has developed a MetsEditor for the purpose of creating METS documents – this used to be done by hand, and was a long and laborious process, which has thankfully now been mechanised.
A METS document is split into several sections:
METS header (METS Hdr) – contains data about the METS document itself – creator, editor, scanning dates, etc.
Descriptive metadata (dmdSec): describes the digital version of the manuscript
Administrative metadata (amdSec): describes the original manuscript source, how the digital files were created and stored, and intellectual property rights
File section (fileSec): lists all the electronic versions of the manuscript
Structural map (structMap): outlines the hierarchical structure of the digital images, and links the elements needed to ensure that separately digitized files (the different pages of the digitized manuscript) are structured appropriately.
The completed XML document is now ready to be passed on to the web development team, who will prepare the interface for the manuscript on the Library’s Digital Mirror.
Morfudd Jones