Intermediary schemas and semantic linkages: an integrated architecture for complex digital archives

This article attempts to assess the feasibility of a Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) based XML approach to integrated metadata for a complex digital archive. In particular, it aims to test whether such an approach can emulate two key features of RDF-based metadata architectures: the flexible reusability of components and the encoding of semantic linkages. In doing so, it seeks to establish whether this approach can be a viable alternative to ontology-based models for digital archive metadata. To do this, the standard use of METS as a packaging schema is extended as an 'intermediary schema' to enable the reuse of conceptual models within its architecture; in addition, the semantic mapping of components to concept repositories is achieved using the METS structural map and the Metadata Authority Description Schema (MADS) schema for controlled vocabularies.