At 10:30 AM 5/2/2002 -0700, Guenter Waibel wrote:
>>To what extent is the
>>structure (hierarchy) of the archive taken into account within the actual
>>METS research projects ? Does there exist a practical example of the linking
>>between the EAD and METS standard ?
>
>This is the question I'm really curious about. A very similar
>question came up at an Online Archive of California Subcommittee
>meeting a couple of weeks back - how do you define where the EAD ends
>and where METS begins if you use them in conjunction? Both standards
>have the capability of describing a complex hierarchical structure
>and at least theoretically, you could actually replace the EADs
>function of hierarchically structuring a collection with a series of
>nested METS documents pointing to more METS documents. I'm not
>implying that it would be either wise or intellectually sound to do
>so, but through the mptr, it's definitely conceivable.
While as a general rule, I would consult with the rest of the editorial
board on
something like this before making a pronouncement on high, I'm going to make
an exception in this case because 1. this matter is so important, and 2. I'm
99.44% certain that the rest of the board will agree.
=======================================================
Official METS Editorial Board Pronouncement from On High:
METS should NOT, repeat, should NOT be used as a replacement
for EAD. Not now. Not *ever*! NEVER!!!!
=======================================================
Thank you. I feel better now.
As I said earlier, the breaking point between EAD and METS is the <dao>
element. Frankly, I don't think anyone should be producing a METS object
for an archival collection before they have an EAD produced for the collection,
so if you're pondering that imponderable 'what is an object' question, the
answer
is 'whatever you have a <dao> tag for in your EAD document'.
I think what we are dealing with here is yet another instance of the 'what
is an object' problem, and that Guenter's comments clearly point the way
to the answer; *we define what the object is* by institutional/collective
practice.
Irving Goffman is out there somewhere laughing about this, I'm sure.
Jerome McDonough
Digital Library Development Team Leader
Elmer Bobst Library, New York University
70 Washington Square South, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10012
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(212) 998-2425
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