### Notes from METS Board Meeting at DLF Fall Forum 2006

**2006 Nov 7**

Present: Morgan Cundiff, Susan Dahl, Adam Farquhar, Markus Enders, Brian
Tingle, Robin Wendler, Nancy Hoebelheinrich, Rick Beaubien, Cecilia
Preston, Rob Wolfe

Apologies: Jerry McDonough, Merrilee Proffitt, Richard Gartner

Visitors: Constance Malpas, OCLC/RLG Programs & Services; Ann Caldwell,
Brown University; Yaniv Levi, Ex Libris; Delphine Khanna, University of
Pennsylvania.

###  Intros / Round Robin Updates

Markus reported on the work by Goettingen University and Cornell
University to further develop the METS API based on Java Beans. The
focus of the efforts is to provide methods of reading METS files. Markus
also briefly discussed the Nestor initiative.

Adam reported that an internal review of content packaging standards for
the British Library resulted in the affirmation of the use of METS for
preservation objects. The British Library's study raises questions about
containers for METS, i.e., what kinds of containers are appropriate for
multiple METS objects.

Susan reported that the University of Alberta had begun working with the
Alouette Project which was designed to be a portal for the U of A. This
project has been funded by CARC. Part of the efforts will involve the
creation of a Metadata Toolkit in which METS would play a part. The
National Library is using METS for Archiving materials and intends to
register an Electronic Archiving profile. Susan has also been asked to
join a Technical Committee for the University of Alberta.

Morgan reported that he continues to work with the "Library of Congress
Presents" program which focuses on dance and other cultural heritage
materials of different formats. As a result, LC is planning to register
more profiles. METS is starting to have more traction at LC with the
catalogers. Morgan and Nate Trail gave a presentation at LC on METS and
MODS which more than 200 people attended. They have been asked to give a
repeat presentation in the near future. Their efforts seemed to have
spurred new projects.

Morgan and his team continue to work on more international collections
by means of adding to the World Digital Library including collections
from the National Library of Egypt. The toolkit that they have been
working on continues to improve. Also, Corey Keith's position has now
been filled by Clay Redding, formerly from Princeton. Morgan has been
asked by Deanna Marcum to analyze how unified access can be provided to
all of the Library's materials as part of LC's strategic planning
process. He and a small group of others are looking at the data as a way
to aggregate it all using XML. Part of the discussion has been exploring
the notion of dis-integrating the ILS and lopping off the discovery
related metadata in order to provide better aggregation of all kinds of
heterogeneous metadata. METS has been a part of these discussions in
terms of where it fits into the bigger picture.

Rick has been working extensively with the METS Documentation Work
Group, but also also been working with Glenn Gardner at the Library of
Congress to move the implementation registry and the METS diagram to the
LoC website from the sunsite at the University of California at
Berkeley. Rick has also created a new master profile which has now been
registered. The new Master profile supersedes the other one registered
for UC Berkeley. UCB has been revising the GenDB tool in order to add
Collection level support, especially useful for EADs.

Cecilia has been working almost exclusively on documentation and
communications issue. More about that later.

Nancy she has been working on Documentation as well as continuing to
work with the IEEE RAMLET effort. The initial RAMLET ontology has more
or less been completed, but still needs to be vetted against the MPEG21
content packaging spec and the ATOM spec. At Stanford, she is working on
a METS profile for transfer of content and metadata for books,
geospatial materials, etc.

Robin explained that Harvard has begun to work on the Next Generation
Digital Repository. They have been building a command line and GUI form
to allow outside people to generate METS, such as Thompson-Gale. METS
may or may not be used internally, but will be used for export/import.

Ann Caldwell has continued to work with digitization efforts at Brown,
but is also interested in beginning to work with other kinds of
development efforts.

Rob has been creating a METS profile for an AIP for DSpace so that METS
objects can be stored in DSpace that have been received as SIPs. They
are using PREMIS, but only the Object schema. He has been asked by
MacKenzie to develop an RDF schema for METS that can be used to build an
ontology along with the other RDF mappings that have done as part of the
SIMILE project. In addition, he has been working on the Longwell tool
that is part of the SIMILE project.

As a stand-in for Merrilee Proffitt who could not be present, Constance
Malpas reiterated OCLC support for METS during the transition associated
with the merger of RLG with OCLC, and reported plans to continue its use
in the future.

Brian reported that CDL is now using 7Train to load content using
CONTENTdm for the Open Content Archive (OCA) in conjunction with
Internet Archive and other OCA partners. METS objects are being created
as part of the process. They have started this with the BioDiversity
Library as a prototype for establishing a "feeder service" for the OCA,
although not for Google.

### Communications and outreach

1.  **METS, The Book, feedback, possibilities for publication**

Suggestions for changes to the METS Primer included:

-   Pulling out the chapter which includes the full XML document, and
    making that an Appendix rather than Chapter 7 of the book. The
    explanatory text that is part of this chapter can be included in a
    different chapter and can also include more information about the
    digitization process associated with the book as a way to provide an
    understanding of how METS can fit into the digitization process. The
    tables should be kept as part of the main text, however.

-   The full XML should be maintained as an example, both as text and as
    a validated xml instance in electronic form. The complete example
    might also be broken into multiple examples that show different
    options, such as using mdRef instead of mdWrap.

-   Publish the PDF as soon as possible, as a DLF publication, if
    feasible.

2.  **METS Website & Wiki development**

The Information Architecture Work Group has begun to discuss how to
improve the METS website and the Mets Wiki. A search box has been added
to the main METS web site. A FAQ is being drafted. Feedback was
requested. Suggestions included:

-   Putting an explanation on the main METS Home page about the METS
    wiki and what it's intended to be used for. For example:

    -   The wiki should be considered a kind of "play" area for
        documents, discussions, works in progress that are not yet
        completed.

    -   Final versions of documents, etc., would then be moved to the
        public website.

-   Provide an explanation of the intended used for the METS wiki on the
    wiki at the top and provide a reference to the METS home page.

-   Would a Project Registry or Initiatives page be useful on the wiki?

-   Provide links within the Profiles section on the METS web page to
    the Profiles section on the METS wiki.

-   As the official METS site, provide some guidance to those just
    starting out with METS as to where to start,

-   What type of information is needed for beginners to METS and also
    those who are more advanced, especially in terms of the
    documentation?

-   We need to have someone from the Board take responsibility for
    looking at the web site and the wiki to see what we have where and
    what the links are between them. Rick will lead this and work with
    Brian, Nancy & Glenn Gardner from LC. More subgroups may be needed
    to improve both the wiki and the website, and should include a
    solicitation of interest to the broader METS community for input and
    assistance..

-   Provide ready access to more current examples of METS documents. The
    examples embedded in METS profiles are not enough, and the examples
    on the web site need to be updated. Morgan will take on this effort.

3.  **Documentation Maintenance**

    -   Need to identify which are the most important pages on the
        website and maintain them.

    -   Need to create a checklist for all the places in which the
        Documentation must be edited when a change is made to the
        schemas. Robin will do.

4.  **Planning for METS events including European Board meeting / MIM
    &/or Training**

The decision was made to explore funding options for a 2 ½ day event in
Spring 2007 at the State University at Goettingen which would include a
METS Opening Day event, a half day MIM with emphasis upon technical
issues, and a Board meeting,. Markus will coordinate, and suggest dates
for this event targeting April or May 2007. It might be possible to
collaborate with the NESTOR initiative.

A second event in the fall of 2007 could be another Opening Day and
Technical meeting or Technical workshop on topics of interest to METS
implementers as well as those working with Digital Preservation, Digital
Repository and Digital Library issues, generally. Possible
collaborations include the National Library of Portugal during its
tenure as President of the EU, and the MINERVA group. If we have a
technical question / issue that we would like to discuss in an open
forum, the DELOS conference and proceedings might be an appropriate
venue. Suggestions for technical issues to discuss included:

-   METS & preservation issues

-   Feasibility of achieving standardization for purposes of
    "interoperability" using profiles.

-   Role of METS in relation to Cyberinfrastructure discussions for
    e-science

Nancy will coordinate this exploration as part of event planning for the
fall in conjunction with Rob, Adam, and Brian. . Adam will talk to a
contact he has with the European Economic Community (Carlos Olivera? --
Program Officer for the EC).

For both events, it's clear that there are needs for general outreach
and introductory educational events to make people aware of what METS
is, as well as continued discussion on technical issues related to
implementation as was done with the MIM in June. Suggestions were made
to look into the production of an opening day / introductory video that
could be made available on a cost recovery basis (Nancy will pursue),
and possibly a video or web conference the next time an Opening Day
event is scheduled (Adam will pursue).

### Board administration

-   Board vacancy (See [Board Membership
    Criteria](http://www.socialtext.net/p-mets-board/index.cgi?board_membership_criteria),
    [Filling Board vacancies \--
    procedures](http://www.socialtext.net/p-mets-board/index.cgi?filling_board_vacancies_procedures).
    Nancy, Rick, and Brian will form the interview committee looking at
    Board nominations with the intention of following the timetable
    outlined in the procedures cited on the METS website. Rick will ask
    Jan Ecklund, Mary Elings for suggestions on museum community

-   Criteria for selecting include

    -   Actively using METS

    -   Community representation: museum, vendor, etc

    -   Expertise representation: still need technical

-   Developing workgroups with METS community. It might be necessary to
    develop workgroups on some of the efforts described above,
    especially the communication issues, but that can be determined
    later.

-   For outreach purposes, we need to keep the Presentations part of the
    METS website current and active, as well as the Calendar of events
    that's part of the METS website. Susan will coordinate these , so
    all should send presentations and notices of events to Susan.

-   Other tasks requiring involvement by the Board include:

    -   Controlled vocabularies reference page

        -   Resurrect plan to extract cvs in use from the profiles.
            Massage and mount? Brian will investigate.

    -   RDF schema for METS

        -   Rob to work on

        -   Status vis-à-vis METS and METS board not clear; needs
            further discussion

        -   Ties in with RAMLET/ ontologies work. Something Board should
            know about.

        -   Raises issues about other versions of the schema---like
            relaxing, realizing that RDF is separate from how it is
            serialized

    -   EAD & METS

        -   Discussion of mix of uses of EAD and METS: separation and
            overlap. Might be topic of technical discussion, and/or
            article.

### METS and Profile schemas

-   Revision process. No further suggestions were made to change the
    revised process, so it is approved, and can be finalized on the METS
    website. Suggestions for improving the knowledge of profiles, their
    advantages and how they could be developed and registered included:

    -   Publishing the html xslt for better viewing of profiles

    -   Better documentation for profile examples

    -   Separating out profile examples from the profile documentation

    -   Expanding examples beyond what's embedded in the profiles

    -   

-   **Proposed revisions to 1.6 version of METS schema:**

    -   ID attributes on stream, and transformfile elements:
        **Approved**

    -   ADMID attribute on metsHdr (to allow metsHdr to refer to digital
        signatures or PREMIS pertaining to the whole METS document:
        **Approved**

    -   xlink:to and xlink:from are required attributes: **Approved**.

        -   Ask Leslie whether NYU still using structLink---need to know
            whether to give NYU a heads up? Rick will do.

-   **Open Issues discussions related to METS schema:**

    -   Add PREMIS to list of "External Schema"? -- **Done**

        -   issue of involvement in PREMIS/METS best practices
            discussion in conjunction with PREMIS editorial board; need
            Liaison = Rob Wolfe.

    -   Need for OBJID Type attribute.

        -   Morgan will follow up and identify / write up use cases

    -   (Time To Live) TTL request:

        -   Markus is dropping request. Not needed for immediate
            purposes.

-   **Open Issues, generally:**

    -   Moving Implementation registry and METS Documentation diagram to
        LOC site : Glenn Gardner working on

    -   Brief brainstorming of questions to put on METS website as part
        of FAQ

        -   Nancy will put up on wiki to discuss, and also to help get
            answers to the questions from the METS community.

**[NEXT BOARD MEETING: CONFERENCE CALL ON FEBRUARY 16,
2007]{.underline}**

***[SUMMARY OF LEADS ON BOARD INITIATIVES:]{.underline}***

1.  Documentation Work Group for METS Primer: Cecilia Preston (with
    Rick, Nancy, Susan, Merrilee)

2.  Review of METS website / wiki with Architectural view : Rick
    Beaubien (with Brian, Glenn Gardner, Nancy, Rob)

3.  Documentation Checklist: Robin Wendler

4.  Example documents for METS website: Morgan Cundiff

5.  METS Event: Spring 2007, Markus Enders

6.  METS Event: Fall 2007, Nancy Hoebelheinrich (with Adam Farquhar,
    Jose Borbinha from National Library of Portugal, Richard Gartner,
    Rob Wolfe)

7.  METS Calendar, References (bibliography) & Presentation lists: Susan
    Dahl

8.  Controlled Vocabulary page: Brian Tingle

9.  PREMIS Liaison: Rob Wolfe

Please send corrections to Nancy at
[mailto:nhoebel@stanford.edu](mailto:nhoebel@stanford.edu)