CR 1.7 add checksum support for metadata

When packaging METS files together with content and metadata files for archiving or exchange, several institutions have found it necessary to inventory metadata files in the fileSec in order to have a place to record checksum information. This means the files are referenced or wrapped in the fileSec and then ref'd again in the appropriate metadata element, and muddies the content file/metadata file distinction (which may not matter). Should the Board consider adding optional CHECKSUM and CHECKSUMTYPE attributes to mdRef and mdWrap?

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Robin Wendler, Harvard

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From: Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard mailto:[email protected]
On Behalf Of Robin Wendler
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2007 6:22 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: METS Fwd: Where do checksums for metadata belong?

Hi, Patrick -- mdRef was the original case, but I think relevant mdWrap
cases would be if you have a base-64 encoded MARC record as wrapped
descriptive metadata or some proprietary audio auxiliary files as
base-64
encoded tech metadata -- that is, metadata that will never be used in
the
context of the METS file itself but will need to be unpacked for use in
another application. As an archive, you still need to know that that
chunk
came to you accurately and intact. Perhaps as part of ingestion process
for a given object profile, you would take METS apart and check each
piece. Even if the entire METS with the wrapped metadata matches its
supplied checksum, a failure to match a checksum on a wrapped component
could help identify and isolate a processing failure by the supplier.

Can you tell I am making this up? I am prepared to be told this is a
bogus
case. What do you think?

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Robin

On Mon, 16 Apr 2007, Yott, Patrick wrote:

Robin,

I think the checksum option for mdRef elements is an interesting idea.

I'm trying to get my head around how it would be used with the mdWrap
element since the data is internal to the document itself. Do you have
an example you can forward?

Thanks,

Patrick