A digital object does not have any meaning to a human being unless the content is described with descriptive, structural and technical (or administrative) metadata. The costs of producing maintaining and transforming metadata have been prohibitive, and cataloguing traditionally often required substantial time spent in repetitive tasks of duplication, which increased the risk of introducing errors. Programmatic, XMLbased metadata and XML metadata tools have promised those maintaining digital databases and datastores of metadata better ways of creating, updating, managing, and transforming metadata. Islandora aims to simplify the process of creating, updating, and indexing XMLbased metadata for storage in a Fedora repository. This presentation provides an update on metadata related tools in Islandora, particularly in Islandora 7 (compatible with Drupal 7). In this most recent version, descriptive metadata forms based on any XML schema can be created and edited using the Form Builder; technical metadata can automatically extracted from objects on ingest using FITS; and administrative metadata emerging from ingest processes using microservices can be written to Fedora’s native “AUDIT” datastream. Islandora builds on the value and features of core Fedora, including the ability to version datastreams, and review versions in the interface.

1. Metadata Management in
Kirsta Stapelfeldt (Islandora); David Wilcox
(dgi) - Open Repositories 2013

2. Outline
• XML Form Builder
• Technical Metadata
• Structural metadata
• Administrative metadata
• Indexing Metadata

3. Descriptive Metadata
• XML Form Builder
• Works with any XML Schema (XSD)
• Writes XML Datastream to object
• Associates forms with content models

4. Descriptive Metadata
• Can pre-populate forms
• Can use elements that don't validate against
the schema
• Can build read-only forms to display
metadata
• GUI for the Drupal Form API

5. XML Form Builder - Islandora 7

6. XML Form Builder - Islandora 7

7. XML Form Builder - Islandora 7

8. XML Form Builder - Islandora 7

9. Technical Metadata
File Information Tool Set (FITS)
• Developed by Nick Ruest - automatic
technical metadata extraction
• Stored using user-defined DSID in FITS
XML format
• Potential to crosswalk to other schemas and
develop form for editing/displaying technical
metadata

10. Structural Metadata
• FOXML - managed and inline datastreams
(extended METS)
• RDF - using Fedora's reserved RELSEXT
datastream (extension to use literals for
page numbers)

11. Administrative Metadata
• Manual Entry
• Fedora's AUDIT datastream
• AUDIT API: on the wishlist for Fedora
Futures Project

12. Status of Batch Editing Metadata
• cURL and other back-end scripts
• Problems with a generic approach
• Can use Solr to find objects with fields that
need to be edited

13. Indexing Metadata
• Gert Schmeltz's GSearch
• Default xslt that can be modified
o :8080/fedoragsearch/rest (what gsearch will pass to
solr documents, what's being indexed, manually
update total index or individual objects by PID)
o :8080/solr/admin
• Configurable Interface

14. User Administration Screens

16. Place Search Blocks

17. Contact Us
David Wilcox
david@discoverygarden.ca
Kirsta Stapelfeldt
kstapelfeldt@upei.ca