METS
The Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) (www.loc.gov/standards/mets) grew out of several experimental 1990s digital projects. In February 2001, the Digital Library Federation convened a meeting of experts from several projects to evaluate what had been learned with respect to metadata and to decide how to go forward. Out of that meeting came the idea for METS, an XML document that packages the metadata associated with a digital resource – the descriptive, administrative, structural, rights and other data needed for retrieving, preserving and serving up digital resources. Then, in a little over a year the METS XML schema was developed, a maintenance structure set up and experimentation worldwide began.
METS metadata is essential for a digital material repository, where digital resources – over 7 million at LC alone – are stored along with information about the resources. A repository, which can take many configurations, is the instrument for access and preservation of the objects. The METS data is also important for the interchange of digital objects for viewing and use by other systems. If the digital resource has with it the METS description, the file should be usable for many activities at the receiving system.