How to Build, Display and Find

METS Objects

Nate Trail
Digital Project Coordinator
Network Development and MARC Standards Office
Library of Congress
ALA - June 25, 2007
Outline of Topics
» A little about the technology
» How we build and display digital objects
» Searching
» Other Tools
» Future Directions
» Conclusions
Technologies Used
» XML documents
• METS Files
• MODS Files
» XSLT processes
• Transformation
• Display
» MySQL Database
» Cocoon framework
• And a little Java
XSLT Transformation
MODS XML for
Beaux Arts Trio
recording

Stylesheet “transforms”
it into a simpler
structure of elements,
labels and values.
XSLT for Display
METS XML for
Beaux Arts Trio
recording

XSLT “transforms” it
into an HTML or
XHTML display for
the screen
Web Framework Concepts

» User input via URL

» Create small programs for easy-to-modify parts

» Separate Data from Action and Design

Key Elements in Describing an Object

»Bibliographic data
»Files
»Object type
»(sheetMusic,printMaterial
audio,video, compactDisc
recordedEvent, bibRecord,
photo, Article, Score…)
Bibliographic data (1)
» Harvested from Voyager ILS (SRU/z3950)
» Inserted into MySQL database
Bibliographic Data(2)
» Direct Data entry for items not previously
cataloged
METS Maker Pipeline – Step 1
» Bibliographic Data is extracted from the
database and converted to MODS
METS Maker Pipeline – Step 2
» Combine queries of:
• Object type (SheetMusic, RecordedEvent etc.)
• Files on the server
• MODS data
• Rights metadata
» Creates a virtual file called “pre-mets”
Object
Files Type
on Web pre-
Server
MODS Pipeline mets
MD Rights
MD
METS Maker Pipeline – Step 3
» METS Maker XSLT processes the file using the
object’s profile and builds a METS File

METS file for

Beaux Arts Trio
concert recording
Display – Step 1
» Within-object Navigation
Display – Step 2
» Descriptive information about the object
Display – Step 3
» Page-turning or Playlists

(pre-display virtual file )

Display – Step 4
» Add page framing and breadcrumbs LC Presents
header and
high-level
navigation

Breadcrumb
navigation

LC Presents
footer (not in
view)
Veterans History Project Displays
Veterans History
Project Experiencing
War Header

Standard Veterans
History Project
Header
Searching
» Lucene is open source and scalable to large
indexes: Australia has 16 million items indexed

» Lucene indexes are easy to configure using

XSLT: METS  n x t m
Searching in LC Presents
» Single box search offered on home page
» Collection-level search offered for subcollections
» Searches may also be limited to certain fields
or object types
Searching in LC Presents
» Canned search to create “virtual collections”
Searching in LC Presents Browse by
Subject,
» New browsing capability Name or
Title
Searching in Veterans History
Limit by
conflict,
branch,
gender,
POW
status,
etc.
Browsing in Veterans History

Browse by
last name,
state, race/
ethnicity
and
war/branch
Searching in Minerva (across collections)

Choose
among
collections
harvested.

MODS
terms to
search.
Other Web Tools

» SQL – query any Oracle or MySQL tables from

the browser
• Holdings queries (beyond z3950/SRU)
» Site administration
• Convert from MARC to MODS or MODS to MARC
• Convert HTML to XML
• Link checking
Future Directions
» New Behaviors, Profiles
• Article OCR
• Multivolume Monograph
• Generating RSS data on the fly
» Integrate JHOVE file inspection tool (and MIX
metadata) into our METS objects
» Move to JPEG2000 file format for images
Conclusions

» The METS standard is flexible enough to

describe multiple kinds of complex objects.

» Profiles in METS help define an object and it’s

range of behaviors

» METS and MODS play well together

Conclusions, cont.
» MODS is extremely powerful as a structural
tool, not just a bibliographic tool

» Consistent, authoritative, structured metadata

makes search and display for an object
persistent into future software and hardware
systems
Conclusions, cont.

» Standards matter. Without standardized

structures, we can’t program a site to retrive or
display items with any reliability.

»Open Source software is a major step forward for

the ability of libraries and other lower budget
institutions to enhance the availability and use
of their digital assets.
 Questions?

www.loc.gov/lcp (LC Presents Music, Theater, and Dance)

www.loc.gov/vets (Veterans History Project)

Nate Trail
ntra@loc.gov
Library of Congress