| Introduction to MODS |
|
MODS is the acronym of the Metadata Object Description
Schema. It is a standard for creating metadata, which has been developed by the Library of Congress.
MODS allows for very rich description of library, museum and archival resources by defining fields or elements that are
important to the description of cultural resources. MODS elements include title, author, creation date, object type, subject,
identification and classification numbers, location and other details. While MODS originated as a modern version of a library
standard-the MARC or Machine Readable Cataloging standard-MODS goes beyond libraries. It is an extensible schema.
It can be extended or enlarged with information that is important to institutions other than libraries. So MODS allows the
addition of details about provenance, physical description, and ownership. MODS is one of a new wave of metadata standards
that can be expressed in XML (Extensible Markup Language), the common communication format of the Internet.
More information about MODS, is at http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/.
|
