Structural Metadata Services for Harvard Libraries

Structural metadata "...ties the components of a complex or compound resource together and makes the whole usable." With complex text documents (i.e., multi-page and/or multi-part objects) these uses include turning "pages" (page images), navigating to a particular page or section, or switching views among available formats (e.g., page image versus text). [See, Robin Wendler, Metadata in the Library, 1999.]

Printed Materials

The Harvard University Library supported Page Delivery Service (PDS) delivers digitized page images of printed materials via web browsers. In order to be relayed through the PDS, each digital object must be accompanied by structural metadata. Imaging Services offers a service using a document-analysis software to produce XML-encoded structural metadata compliant with the standardized METS schema and searchable text from digitized page-images in accordance with locally created guidelines. In addition to describing elements within an item such as table of contents, index, chapters, the resulting structural metadata also provides a method of navigation to and from and within these elements.

Manuscript Materials

Digitized manuscript materials are also delivered through the Page Delivery Service. As with printed materials, each digital object must be accompanied by structural metadata. Imaging Services will create XML-encoded structural metadata compliant with the standardized METS schema for all digitized manuscript materials. The metadata is based on descriptive and structural information provided by the holding repository or by Imaging Services staff for projects in which Imaging Services is preparing the manuscripts for digitization (see Source Material Preparation).