Technical & Metadata Standards

Adhering to technical standards and creating metadata using a recognised schema will make it easier for you to manage your digital resources and share them with other organisations. This section lists some of the most common standards currently in use in cultural heritage organisations.   If you would like to suggest a standard for this section, please check the selection criteria and contact us.

Digitisation Standard (07)
This Standard is for use in the design and conduct of responsible digitisation by all organisations which are covered by the Public Records Act 2005. A Continuum Resource Kit containing Archives New Zealand’s current standards, tools and guidelines, can be downloaded from this site.

http://www.archives.govt.nz/continuum/documents/publications/s6/

Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines (07)
Text Encoding Initiative Consortium

These Guidelines have been developed by the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) for representing features of a text which need to be identified explicitly in order to facilitate processing of the text by computer programs.

http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/html/index.html

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) 6.0 Specification
Adobe Systems Incorporated
TIFF is the format most used by cultural heritage organisations for archival quality digital images.

http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/tiff/index.html

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
JPEG Committee
Website of the organisation responsible for the JPEG format for images. JPEG is widely used for web-based images because it offers a reasonable compression factor (and therefore reasonable storage requirements). JPEG is currently recognised as better for colour images.

http://www.jpeg.org/

JPEG 2000
JPEG Committee
JPEG 2000 is new image encoding format offering advantages over the current JPEG standard. JPEG 2000 consists of 11 parts. It uses state-of-the-art compression techniques based on wavelet technology.
http://www.jpeg.org/jpeg2000/index.html

MPEG Standards
Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
MPEG, a working group of ISO, have developed a number of digital video compression standards and file formats. The three major standards are MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.
http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/standards.htm

MPEG Standards
MPEG Industrial Forum
The MPEG Industry Forum is a not-for-profit organization promoting the emerging MPEG standards (MPEG-4, MPEG-7 and MPEG-21), and serves as a single point of information on technology, products and services for those standards.
http://www.m4if.org

The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (Sep-01)
National Information Standards Organisation (NISO)
The Dublin Core Metadata set defines fifteen metadata elements for resource description.
http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-85.pdf

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1: Reference Description (Feb-03)
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
This document is the reference description of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, and supports the official NISO standard.
http://www.dublincore.org/documents/dces/

Encoded Archival Description (EAD) Official EAD version 2002 Web Site
EAD Working Group of SAA and the Network Development and MARC Standards Office at the Library of Congress
The EAD Document Type Definition (DTD) is a markup standard for encoding finding aids using SGML or XML. It is particularly useful for representing hierarchical relationships between collections and items.
http://www.loc.gov/ead/

Metadata Standards Framework – Resource Discovery (Oct-00)

National Library of New Zealand
Defines and describes the resource discovery metadata standards to be used by NLNZ. Includes encoding standards such as RDF, XML and HTML, as well as metadata standards like MARC, Dublin Core and EAD.
http://www.natlib.govt.nz/services/get-advice/digital-libraries/metadata-standards-framework

Metadata Standards Framework - Preservation Metadata (Nov-02)
National Library of New Zealand
This schema details the data elements needed to support the preservation of digital objects within the National Library of New Zealand. The schema will provide the basis for the design of a database repository and input system for collecting and storing preservation metadata.
http://www.natlib.govt.nz/services/get-advice/digital-libraries/metadata-standards-framework

Data Dictionary - Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images (Jun-02)
National Information Standards Organisation (NISO)
This standard defines a set of metadata elements for raster digital images to enable users to develop, exchange, and interpret digital image files. The dictionary has been designed to facilitate interoperability between systems, services, and software as well as to support the long-term management of and continuing access to digital image collections.
http://www.niso.org/standards/standard_detail.cmf?std_id=731

Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard (METS)
Digital Library Federation and the Network Development and MARC Standards Office at the Library of Congress
METS is a standard for encoding descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata regarding objects within a digital library, expressed using XML schema.
http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/