Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard: a Library of Congress-maintained XML schema for encoding descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata for digital library objects, providing a wrapper around content files and metadata sections.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 10 Jul 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
An archival information package (AIP) in Archivematica wrapped as METS, with MODS descriptive metadata and PREMIS preservation metadata inside.
Is an instance
A digitised manuscript ingest from a national library wrapped in METS.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
A bare PDF file is not METS.
Not an instance
A Dublin Core record alone is not METS — METS would wrap it in a dmdSec.

Editorial commentary

METS organises an object into sections: dmdSec (descriptive metadata), amdSec (administrative metadata, with technical, rights, source, and digiprov subsections), fileSec (a manifest of content files), structMap (logical or physical structure), structLink, and behaviorSec. METS embeds or links other metadata standards (MODS for descriptive, PREMIS for preservation, MIX for image-technical, TextMD for text-technical) rather than replacing them. METS is widely used in digital preservation systems (Archivematica, RODA) and digitisation workflows.

References

Library of Congress, 'METS Schema and Documentation' (loc.gov/standards/mets).

Also known as

Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="METS"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/mets" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/mets",
  "name": "METS",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/mets",
  "description": "Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard: a Library of Congress-maintained XML schema for encoding descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata for digital library objects, providing a wrapper around content files and metadata sections.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/research-info-systems#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/mets",
  "sameAs": [
    "Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-07-10T02:06:20",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

Referenced across the research world

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