Hi, Repke,

Many of the digital objects [1] visible through VirgoBeta [2], which is an installation of Blacklight [3], are stored as METS. For each METS file we index the relevant parts in solr, and we have a middleware application that can easily grab relevant bits of it for re- purposing, so that we can use our METS data in many places without having many places where METS must be understood and interpreted. This middleware app is just a set of XSL transformations, held together by cocoon, of the form:

http://{URL FOR APP}/{ID OF METS FILE}/{descMeta | adminMeta | technicalMeta | rightsMeta | MIX | getParts } (This is from memory, so I know I'm leaving out some of our metadata streams and mis-naming others.)

We also create a Fedora object for each METS file with externally managed datastreams that reference each of the metadata datastreams. This is sort of a belt-and-suspenders approach, I realize, and I plan to re-examine it as this project progresses.

Then Blacklight has object-class specific views that know how to display these various parts (data is drawn from solr for the search results, and from the metadata streams for the full record display).

One of the views we're particularly interested in, which we haven't yet tackled, is a viewer for our digitized manuscripts. We have digitized manuscripts represented as METS files, in the system I've described above, but we're still working on displaying these to end users. I love what you've created with the DFG Viewer! I hope you don't mind if I borrow some of your UI ideas. Nicely done.

Bess

[1] e.g., http://virgobeta.lib.virginia.edu/catalog/uva-lib:414860
[2] http://virgobeta.lib.virginia.edu
[3] http://projectblacklight.org

On 17-Sep-09, at 4:05 AM, Repke de Vries wrote:

Dear Code4Lib Community

read the METS based OpenMIC - OpenWMS announcement (July 9th) with
great interest.

It points at a need beyond METS creation and that is METS Viewers for
end users:

who in the CODE4LIB community is working on METS Viewer applications ?

Here is an example of what we mean by that - the DFGViewer:
http://dfg-viewer.de/en/regarding-the-project/

Anyone else ?


Background: the International Institute for Social History [ http://
www.iisg.nl ]  has such collections that we are involved with both
the archiving and library communities.  Metadata issues therefore are
a mixed bag. Added to that are Permanent Access issues. We are
looking at METS to tie it all together and at METS Viewers for our
users to easily navigate and negotiate what 's pulled together in
these METS containers.

Thanks, Repke de Vries

Elizabeth (Bess) Sadler
Chief Architect for the Online Library Environment
Box 400129
Alderman Library
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22904

b...@virginia.edu
(434) 243-2305

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