California Cultures: Implementing a Model for Virtual Collections

Providing Metadata for Compound Digital Objects: Strategic Planning for an Institution's First Use of METS, MODS, and MIX

“…West, Llona, Gerontakos, and Biggins (2007) found the structural capabilities of METS to be ideal for the complexity inherent in a collection of digitized architectural photographs. Guerard and Chandler (2006) expressed a similar sentiment, noting that METS allowed one to express "the structure of multipart, multilevel documents (e.g., multipaged letters, manuscripts and pamphlets, photo albums, scrapbooks)" (p. 53).…”

“…Subsequent matching of the required expertise with existing staff, or recognizing staffing gaps that need to be filled prior to implementation, will also be crucial. Institutions with substantial technical-systems staff on hand may be able to create robust and complex applications and interfaces in house (Guerard & Chandler, 2006). Institutions lacking sufficient technical expertise may seek to hire consultants or other outside experts to work on specific aspects of an implementation (Schwartz & Iobst, 2008).…”

“…Once the institution has clarified its metadata needs, the next step is deciding whether to adopt existing tools from the marketplace or to develop tools in house. Implementations at institutions with substantial technical resources utilized sophisticated METS generation tools tied to robust, multipart application systems created in house (Guerard & Chandler, 2006;Pearce et al, 2008;West et al, 2007). At the time the Sanborn project was being planned, there were few METS record-generation tools available.…”

“…In preparation for the RFP/RFI process, the team needs to know enough to communicate its needs to prospective digitizing agencies, and to request all the information it needs to select the appropriate vendor. In other METS implementations, technical metadata capture has been done both manually (West et al, 2007;Breytenbach & Groenewald, 2008) and by automated process (Guerard & Chandler, 2006;Dappert & Enders, 2008). Guerard and Chandler's workflow allowed for both automated capture and manual entry of technical metadata, if needed.…”

Developing a Metadata Best Practices Model: The Experience of the Colorado State University Libraries

“…The final recommendations of the task force and lessons learned make this article essential reading. Guerard and Chandler (2006) extensively documented the Online Archive of California Working Group's procedures and implementation of guidelines and best practices for California cultural collections. Goldsmith and Knudson (2006) described the process of selecting a metadata standard for use in the Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library's digital object repository, which holds full-text records and complex digital objects.…”