At 03:47 PM 5/2/2002 +0200, you wrote:
>My first question concerns the hierarchical structure of an archive. Most
>archivists make a distinction between on the one hand, an archival fund, and
>on the other hand collections of items that are associated based on some
>common characteristics such as the type of media. Within the description of
>an archival fund, the description at various levels of the fund is a
>fundamental part of the archival descriptive practice. In this context,
>there is ofted made an appeal to the EAD standard.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 ?
The thinking behind MOA2 (METS predecessor) and METS is that METS takes
over where EAD stops, and EAD stops at the <dao> (or <daoloc>) tag. So,
archives
should be using EAD to provide metadata regarding an archival collection in
its entirety,
including describing the relationship of the various items in the
collection to one
another. Part of that may include provide a hypertext link, using the
<dao> element,
to a digital representation of an archival object. The hope for METS is
that it can
provide a single, standardized format for such a digital
representation. In short, in
the METS view of the world, a <dao> should provide a link to a METS file,
and METS
should support (in theory), digital representation of any object which
archivists might
want to produce AND provide a linking facility that allows a METS object to
point back
to an EAD document for the collection containing the METS object.
Entirely unofficial, Jerry-recommended practice would be to have your METS
object
contain a dmdSec/mdRef which points back not just to the EAD file, but uses the
xptr attribute on mdRef to point to the specific location in the EAD
finding aid for
the <dao>, <daodesc>, or <daogrp> which points to the METS object so that
you have something like bi-directional linking between the EAD file and the
METS
file.
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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