Howdy,
Proposed new versions of the METS schema (and associated XLink schema)
and
the METS Profile schema are now available at the METS website
(http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets). Here's a summary of the changes
to the
various schema:
METS Schema
1. Documentation for attributes has been relocated to make it easier to
automate
the generation of documentation for the METS schema.
2. A new attribute, CONTENTIDS, with a new simpleType of URIs has been
added
to the <div>, <fptr>, <mptr> and <area> elements. This attribute has
been added
primarily to simplify conversion between METS and MPEG21 documents, but
may
be useful for others wishing to associate URIs with specific portions
of a structural
map without having to link to identifier information in a <descMD>
element.
3. The XLink namespace declaration has been changed to conform with
the W3C's XML Linking Language (XLink) Version 1.0 namespace
recommendation.
A new version of the XLink schema has been provided which also conforms
with this
namespace.
4. ID attributes have been added to the elements <FContent>,
<structLink> and
<smLink>.
5. "LOM" has been added as a metadata type in support of those using
METS to
archive courseware objects.
METS documents which declare the XLink namespace will need to be
updated to
use the new version of the schema; however, this change should resolve
compatibility
problems experienced by those trying to employ the MODS schema with the
METS
schema. Beyond that, existing METS documents should be compatible with
the
new schema.
METS Profile Schema
1. An optional, repeatable <head> element has been added to the
<textSection> content
model so that headings may be interspersed in any text section in a
profile.
2. A LABEL attribute has been added to the <Appendix> element to allow
for the
addition of a machine-processable label/title for an Appendix.
The METS editorial board would like to solicit comments from the METS
user community
on these proposed new versions of the METS and METS Profile schema.
You may
send any comments to [log in to unmask], and I will forward them on to the
rest of the
editorial board. Please send comments to me by Wednesday, Dec. 1,
2004. At that
point, the editorial board will review the submitted comments and make
a final determination
as to whether the proposed new schema will become the next official
versions.
Thanks! We look forward to your comments.
Jerome McDonough
Digital Library Development Team Leader
Elmer Bobst Library, New York University
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
(212) 998-2425
[log in to unmask]
|