It has been brought to our attention that there is still a
need for the Audio Technical Metadata Schema (AMD) and the Video Technical Metadata
Schema (VMD) for format-specific technical metadata. These were originally
prepared as part of the Library of Congress' Audiovisual Prototyping Project
(see: http://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/avprot/metsmenu2.html)
in 2002. Since then there has been a lot of work done on more granular,
up-to-date technical metadata schemas for audio and video (e.g. AES, MXF), although
some of this work is not quite completed or widely implemented in the METS
community. There are still a number of METS profiles that use AMD and VMD
schemas as METS extension schemas (and in fact a message went out today to the
METS list about the MuseiDItalia METS Profile, which uses them).
The Swedish National Archives, which also uses them,
detected some errors in the AMD and VMD schemas, and Karin Bredenberg offered
to do a minor revision. In addition to correcting these errors, she harmonized
some of the element names with those in PREMIS where equivalent elements
existed (as was done with in the NISO standard for digital still images in the
most recent version). We have made these draft revised schemas available for
comment on the PREMIS site. We realize that something better may replace
these soon, but in the meantime it seemed desirable to make these fairly minor changes.
Note that the PREMIS Data Dictionary version 2.0 defined an extension element
for format-specific object characteristics (objectCharacteristicsExtension) and
the guidelines for using PREMIS in METS (http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/guidelines-premismets.pdf)
suggests using this for format-specific technical metadata schemas (although
they may also be used directly in techMD as METS extensions).
We would like to start a comment period for about a month. The
changes are summarized at the top of the schema in the revision section. The
schemas are available at:
AMD: http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/AMD-20100629.xsd
VMD: http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/VMD-20100629.xsd
Please send comments to the METS or PIG lists or directly to
me.
Thanks to Karin Bredenberg for her revisions.
Rebecca S. Guenther
Senior Networking & Standards Specialist
Network Development & MARC Standards Office
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave SE
Washington, DC 20540
voice: +1.202.707.5092
fax: +1.202.707.0115