Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS)

Maintained by the Library of Congress.

METS is an XML metadata standard intended to package all the information needed to represent a complex object, including both primary files and metadata that describes them. It defines its own structure for representing files and the relationships between them, and allows embedding or referencing descriptive, technical, rights, source, and digital provenance metadata defined by other schemas. METS has various levels of support in digital asset management systems like DuraSpace and Greenstone, and tools such as OpenWMS and the Archivists’ Toolkit. This standard grew out of early work on representing complex digital objects by the Making of America II project. METS is maintained at the Library of Congress and through a volunteer Editorial Board.