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METS2 Suggested Attribute Values

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Andreas Nef edited this page Feb 26, 2025 · 31 revisions

This page documents suggested attribute values and suggested related attribute value syntax in METS 2. This list currently includes the allowed values from METS 1.

METS 2 does not require particular attribute values, and it is up to the METS profile to specify this. (Work is forthcoming to update the METS profile schema in accordance with METS 2.) However, using the values recommended here may aid with interoperability.

agent@ROLE

Specifies the function of the agent with respect to the METS record.

Values allowed from METS 1 are:

  • CREATOR: The person(s) or institution(s) responsible for the METS document.
  • EDITOR: The person(s) or institution(s) that prepares the metadata for encoding.
  • ARCHIVIST: The person(s) or institution(s) responsible for the document/collection.
  • PRESERVATION: The person(s) or institution(s) responsible for preservation functions.
  • DISSEMINATOR: The person(s) or institution(s) responsible for dissemination functions.
  • CUSTODIAN: The person(s) or institution(s) charged with the oversight of a document/collection.
  • IPOWNER: Intellectual Property Owner: The person(s) or institution holding copyright, trade or service marks or other intellectual property rights for the object.

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile.

agent@TYPE

Used to specify the type of agent.

Values allowed from METS 1 are:

  • INDIVIDUAL: Use if an individual has served as the agent.
  • ORGANIZATION: Use if an institution, corporate body, association, non-profit enterprise, government, religious body, etc. has served as the agent.

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile.

altRecordID@TYPE

A description of the identifier type.

Example values from METS 1:

  • OCLC record number
  • LCCN

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile. METS 1 did not limit the possible values for this attribute.

area@SHAPE

An attribute that can be used as in HTML to define the shape of the relevant area within the content file pointed to by the <area> element. Typically this would be used with image content (still image or video frame) when only a portion of the image pertains. If SHAPE is specified then COORDS must also be present. SHAPE should be used in conjunction with COORDS in the manner defined for the shape and coords attributes on an HTML5 element.

Values allowed from METS 1 are:

  • RECT
  • CIRCLE
  • POLY

Implementations should interpret these values as in HTML 5.

Other values

Other values may be used for this attribute in METS 2, but their interpretation is implementation-specific.

area@BETYPE

Begin/End Type: An attribute that specifies the kind of BEGIN and/or END values that are being used. For example, if BYTE is specified, then the BEGIN and END point values represent the byte offsets into a file. If IDREF is specified, then the BEGIN element specifies the ID value that identifies the element in a structured text file where the relevant section of the file begins; and the END value (if present) would specify the ID value that identifies the element with which the relevant section of the file ends. For a given implementation, the METS profile should specify the allowed values for BETYPE and the syntax of the BEGIN and END attributes.

Values allowed from METS 1, and recommended syntaxes for the BEGIN and END attributes, are:

SMPTE time codes

The following time values are defined by reference to the ST 12-1:2008 and ST 258:2004 SMPTE standards.

  • SMPTE-25: SMPTE time code for 25 frame per second material.
  • SMPTE-24: SMPTE time code for 24 frame per second material.
  • SMPTE-DF30: SMPTE time code for 30 frame per second frame material.
  • SMPTE-NDF30: SMPTE time code for 30 frame per second non-drop material.
  • SMPTE-DF29.97: SMPTE time code for 29.97 frame per second drop frame material.
  • SMPTE-NDF29.97: SMPTE time code for 29.97 frame per second non-drop material.

Time codes should be formatted as in section 8 (Time code) of ST 258:2004, for example as HH:MM:SS:FF (hours, minutes, seconds, and frames) for a non-drop time code or as HH:MM:SS;FF for a drop frame time code.

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile.

area@EXTTYPE

Extent type: An attribute that specifies the kind of EXTENT values that are being used. For example if BYTE is specified then EXTENT would represent a byte count. If TIME is specified the EXTENT would represent a duration of time. For a given implementation, the METS profile should specify the allowed values for EXTTYPE and the syntax of the EXTENT attribute.

Values allowed from METS 1 are any of the values for BETYPE except for IDREF and XPTR.

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile.

div@TYPE

Specifies the type of structural division that the <div> element represents.

Sample values from METS 1 are:

  • chapter
  • article
  • page
  • track
  • segment
  • section

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile. METS 1 did not limit the possible values for this attribute. The METS 1 schema indicates that "suggestions for controlled vocabularies for TYPE may be found on the METS website," but there does not appear to have been work in this area since 2004, and it does not appear that any such suggestions ever appeared.

file@BETYPE, stream@BETYPE

Begin/End Type: An attribute that specifies the kind of BEGIN and/or END values that are being used.

The only allowed value from METS 1 is BYTE; BEGIN and END point values represent the byte offsets into the parent file.

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile.

fileGrp@USE, file@USE

Indicates the intended use of all files or copies of the file aggregated under the parent element.

Sample values from METS 1 are:

  • master
  • reference
  • thumbnails for image files

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile. METS 1 did not limit the possible values for this attribute.

FLocat@USE, FContent@USE

Indicates the intended use of the specific copy of the file referenced or included.

Sample values from METS 1 are:

  • service master
  • archive master

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile. METS 1 did not limit the possible values for this attribute.

md@USE, mdGrp@USE

Specifies the purpose of the metadata included in this element.

Recommended values for metadata USE attributes in METS 2 are:

  • DESCRIPTIVE - Used to record descriptive metadata pertaining to the METS object as a whole or one of its components. Can be expressed according to many description standards (i.e., MARC, MODS, Dublin Core, TEI Header, EAD, VRA, FGDC, DDI) or any other appropriate XML schema. Corresponds to <dmdSec> in METS 1.
  • TECHNICAL - Used to record technical metadata about a component of the METS object, such as a digital content file. May be expressed using schemas such as MIX, AudioMD/VideoMD, TextMD, or any other appropriate XML schema. Corresponds to <techMD> in METS 1.
  • RIGHTS - Records information about copyright and licensing pertaining to a component of the METS object. Rights metadata can be expressed using PREMIS Rights or any other appropriate XML schema. Corresponds to <rightsMD> in METS 1.
  • SOURCE - Used to record descriptive and administrative metadata about the source format or media of a component of the METS object such as a digital content file. It is often used for discovery, data administration or preservation of the digital object. Corresponds to <sourceMD> in METS 1.
  • PROVENANCE - Used to record any preservation-related actions taken on the various files which comprise a digital object (e.g., those subsequent to the initial digitization of the files such as transformation or migrations) or, in the case of born digital materials, the files’ creation. In short, digital provenance should be used to record information that allows both archival/library staff and scholars to understand what modifications have been made to a digital object and/or its constituent parts during its life cycle. This information can then be used to judge how those processes might have altered or corrupted the object’s ability to accurately represent the original item. One might, for example, record master derivative relationships and the process by which those derivations have been created. It may also be used for information regarding the migration/transformation of a file from its original digitization (e.g., OCR, TEI, etc.,) to its current incarnation as a digital object (e.g., JPEG2000). Can be expressed can be expressed using PREMIS Events or other appropriate XML schemas. Corresponds to <digiprovMD> in METS 1.

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile.

mets@TYPE

Specifies the class or type of the object.

Sample values from METS 1 are:

  • book
  • journal
  • stereograph
  • dataset
  • video

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile. METS 1 did not limit the possible values for this attribute.

metsDocumentID@TYPE

A description of the identifier type.

METS 1 did not specify any sample values for this attribute. Suggested values may be listed here in the future.

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile. METS 1 did not limit the possible values for this attribute.

structMap@TYPE

Identifies the type of structure represented by the <structMap>.

Sample values from METS 1:

  • physical: representing a purely physical structure
  • logical: representing a purely logical or intellectual structure

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile. METS 1 did not limit the possible values for this attribute.

transformfile@TRANSFORMTYPE

Used to indicate the type of transformation needed to render content of a file accessible. This may include unpacking a file into subsidiary files/streams.

Allowed values from METS 1 are:

  • decompression: The action of reversing data compression, i.e., the process of encoding information using fewer bits than an unencoded representation would use by means of specific encoding schemas.
  • decryption: The process of restoring data that has been obscured to make it unreadable without special knowledge (encrypted data) to its original form.

Other values

Possible values and their interpretation should be specified in the METS profile.

CHECKSUMTYPE: <file>, <mdRef>, <mdWrap>

Specifies the checksum algorithm used to produce the value contained in the CHECKSUM attribute. For a given implementation, the METS profile should specify the allowed values for CHECKSUMTYPE and the syntax of the CHECKSUM attribute.

Values allowed in METS 1 are:

Generally, checksums should be encoded as hexadecimal digits (rather than as Base64 or some other binary encoding). For example, an MD5 checksum would appear as CHECKSUMTYPE="MD5" CHECKSUM="68b329da9893e34099c7d8ad5cb9c940"

Interoperable implementations of METS should be able to verify checksums using CRC32, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512, as these checksums are in wide use and tools to compute them are readily available.

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile.

LOCTYPE: <mptr>, <mdRef>, <FLocat>

Specifies the locator type used in the LOCREF attribute. For a given implementation, the METS profile should specify the allowed values for LOCTYPE and the syntax of the LOCREF attribute. Generally, best practice is to use a resolvable URL for the value of LOCREF; if that is not possible, the METS profile should specify how locations are resolved.

Values allowed from METS 1 are:

  • ARK: An Archival Resource Key. For interoperability, this should be a resolvable URL that includes a name mapping authority as described in ARK anatomy, rather than a bare identifier of the form ark:/.../....
  • URN: A Uniform Resource Name, that is, a URI that uses the urn: scheme.
  • URL: Any Uniform Resource Locator not covered by another listed category. Relative URLs should be resolved as in Section 5 of RFC3986. METS does not provide a mechanism for embedding a base URI, so base URIs will typically be resolved either by the URI used to retrieve the METS document (section 5.1.3) or via an application-specific default (section 5.1.4)
  • PURL: A persistent URL, such as those created by Internet Archive or the Government Publishing Office, which does not fall into any more specific category of persistent identifier.
  • HANDLE: A persistent URL resolvable via handle.net. For interoperability, this should be a resolvable URL that includes the https://handle.net/ prefix.
  • DOI: A Digital Object Identifier as described in ISO 26324. For interoperability, this should be a resolvable URL that includes the https://doi.org/ prefix.

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile.

MDTYPE: <mdRef>, <mdWrap>

Used to indicate the type of the associated metadata. Metadata included or linked to by METS files is typically (but is not required to be) formatted as XML. For a given implementation, the METS profile should specify the allowed values for MDTYPE and the corresponding syntax of included or linked metadata.

Values allowed in METS 1 are:

Additional values could include:

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile.

STATUS: <md>, <mdGrp>

Sample values from METS 1 are:

  • superceded - previous versions of metadata; no longer applicable to this object
  • current - current version of metadata for this object

Other values

Other values are possible; their interpretation is up to the specific METS profile. METS 1 did not limit the possible values for this attribute.

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