Interoperability Between Archival and Bibliographic Metadata: an EAD to MODS Crosswalk

Abstract

In this article we investigate the problem of semantic interoperability between archival and bibliographic metadata used in digital libraries and repositories. We investigate the semantic relationships between two metadata standards, namely the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS). We propose a crosswalk between EAD and MODS consisting of three basic components: (a) a semantic mapping from EAD elements/attributes to MODS elements/attributes, (b) techniques to map the hierarchical structure of the EAD document to MODS, and (c) techniques to retain in MODS the information related to the archival components that is inherited from the descriptions of components of higher hierarchy in the EAD document. This is an electronic version of an article published in Lina Bountouri, Manolis Gergatsoulis. "Interoperability between archival and bibliographic metadata: an EAD to MODS crosswalk", Journal of Library Metadata, Vol. 9, No. 1, pages 98-133, 2009. Journal of Library Metadata is available online at: http://www.informaworld.com and the open URL for this article is http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a914011347~frm=titlelink.