Hello all-

Here at Indiana University we're working to develop a page-turning
application for digital objects (right now just digital images of books,
sheet music, etc. - anything that should be displayed in a sequence)
that runs off of METS files. We're starting with a set of brittle books
scanned by our Preservation department.

These books have been previously available as PDF files, and bookmarks
were added to these files showing a single-level rudimentary strucutre.
The department that created these PDF files developed some guidelines as
to what features of the book should be labeled with bookmarks (things
like Chapter, Dedication, Frontispiece, Map, Plate, Preface, Title
Page). In practice these were used not so much as a controlled
vocabulary from which to choose labels, but as a guideline for what
features to mark. The acutal text used for the bookmarks varied widely.

In translating this practice to a METS structMap, we're putting the text
formerly in a PDF bookmark into the structMap <div LABEL=""> atribute
(e.g., <div LABEL="I. I am Born.">). This is what will display to the
user, so the basic functionality in the PDF files is now repeated. But I
think we can and probably should go a bit further and use the <div
TYPE=""> attribute as a means of recording strings more meaningful to
the page-turning applications than the LABEL attribue strings. Although
METS of course doesn't limit values of the TYPE attribute to any
particular list (and for good reason), I'm thinking that I'd like to
have a finite list of strings that we use locally for this project in
the <div TYPE=""> attribute, to allow us to maintain consistency in METS
docs and perhaps to allow the page-turning application to do something
intelligent with them (generate lists of illustrations, etc.) TEI has a
similar div/@type mechanism, but it also allows any string to be used in
the type attribute. I could use our list developed locally for adding
PDF bookmarks as a starting point, but it would definitely need work.
I'd be interested in hearing how others have approached this. Has anyone
developed a list of <div TYPE=""> attributes for book-like objects (in a
METS Profile or elsewhere) for use in a particular project that they'd
be willing to share?

Thanks!

Jenn


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Jenn Riley
Metadata Librarian
Digital Library Program
Indiana University - Bloomington
Main Library E170
(812) 856-5759
www.dlib.indiana.edu