A posting from Jerome McDonough (Digital Library Development Team Leader, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University) announces the release of a beta version of the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) XML schema. METS "provides an XML-based framework for encoding descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata for a digital library object. It can be used both as a standardized mechanism for exchanging digital library objects between repositories, and as an encoding mechanism for local storage, retrieval and display of digital library objects. METS has been developed as an initiatve of the Digital Library Federation and is being maintained in the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the US Library of Congress." The development team solicits feedback from the library community regarding the design of the METS XML schema. Comments on the XML schema should be sent to the Listserver by August 31, 2001 in anticipation of a review meeting in September. Interested parties may subscribe to the METS Forum, an unmoderated computer forum open to members of the METS development community.

From the METS web site: "A METS document consists of four major sections: (1) Descriptive Metadata: The descriptive metadata section may point to descriptive metadata external to the METS document (e.g., a MARC record in an OPAC or an EAD finding aid maintained on a WWW server), or contain internally embedded descriptive metadata, or both. Multiple instances of both external and internal descriptive metadata may be included in the descriptive metadata section. (2) Administrative Metadata: The administrative metadata section provides information regarding how the files were created and stored, intellectual property rights, metadata regarding the original source object from which the digital library object derives, and information regarding the provenance of the files comprising the digital library object (i.e., master/derivative file relationships, and migration/transformation information). As with descriptive metadata, administrative metadata may be either external to the METS document, or encoded internally. (3) File Groups: The file group section lists all files comprising all electronic versions of the digital object. File group elements may nest, to provide for subdividing the files by object version. (4) Structural Map: The structural map is the heart of a METS document. It outlines a hierarchical structure for the digital library object, and links the elements of that structure to content files and metadata that pertain to each element..."