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At 10:21 AM 3/25/2002 -0800, you wrote:
>Thinking about those issues, I read Jerome's post on extension
>schema's with great interest. Heck, I'll confess, I read *all* of
>Jerome's posts with great interest :-) He doesn't mention any
>descriptive md (probably because nobody is going back to the drawing
>board for that one) - I'd still be very interested to hear what
>implementors are planning to use at this point. Furthermore I'm
>wondering whether the Technical MD for Still Images out of Michigan
>is based on the NISO draft standard? Could somebody confirm my hunch?
>And last but not least here's the absolutely impossible question: Is
>there any (tentative) timeline on when a first set of extension
>schemas would be released and approved / recommended by the editorial
>board?

As far as descriptive metadata goes, I believe there are probably two
major extensions where people would like to see METS-approved incarnations:
Dublin Core and MARC.  One of the folks helping out on the editorial
board has also been involved in Dublin Core, and is checking with DCMI
to see if they're going to be releasing an official XML schema for qualified
DC.  If so, I think everyone's preference would be to hold off for the official
version and use that as an extension for METS.  If not, I may try to produce
one based on the existing work done by OAI.  As for as MARC data goes,
I'm interested in talking further with the folks at the LC Network Development
and MARC Standards office to find out whether MODS is going to be the
official XML schema encoding for MARC data, or whether there's going to be
another XML schema effort based on the current MARC XML DTD.
Once that's cleared up, I think we'll be in a good shape to settle on an
official METS-approved MARC extension schema.

Now, as for the tentative timeline for officially approved schemas: very hard
to say, since we can't really do anything official until somebody has a schema
far enough along that they want to submit it to the board for the stamp of
approval.  However, I will say that I would VERY much like to see a DC
extension schema, and technical metadata schema for text/still
image/audio/video
nailed down and approved before the end of summer, and earlier if possible.

The METS editorial board will be meeting May 9 before the DLF meeting, and
I would *strongly* encourage anyone wanting to submit an extension schema
for consideration at that meeting to have an electronic copy delivered to me
NO LATER than April 30.


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